Seiichi, Stop Pacing
by jellinor
Summary: The Master suffers a minor bout of identity crisis, The Emperor has a moment, The Child of God is unusually godly, and everyone's favourite kouhai runs a bit late. It's that time of the year again, and Rikkai Dai boys take good care of their own. One-shot in four parts.
1. part 1

Author's Note:

The scene of the crime is none other than Rikkai Daigaku Fuzoku Koukou, which the Author imagines to be the 'grown-up' section of the Rikkai Daigaku Fuzoku Chuugakkou we all have come to know and love (and on that note: am I completely off the mark here? Someone, please tell me. I'm actually rather curious), at the start of the Big Three & Co.'s second year of high school tennis. Almighty as ever, they have made it their business to take the tennis circuit by storm, successfully edging out the cut-throat competition made up of familiar faces and team uniforms; all while Tezuka Kunimitsu and Echizen Ryoma, whose presences continue to loom in the shadows and on everyone's minds, set out to conquer the known world, one continent at the time.

-#-

A few things worthy of mention:

(But not so important that you can't just ignore 'em and dive straight into the story.)

**One**, this story was originally posted as a _monster_ of a one-shot. Okay, so that's a slight exaggeration, but it _is_ pretty long, so you might want to get yourself a cup of tea and a biscuit (or two) before sinking your teeth into it for real. The Author, who eventually realized that the experience might be just a tad overwhelming, apologizes profusely and belatedly for the inconvenience caused to the unlucky few forced to plough through the whole thing in one sitting –** and has since endeavoured to savagely cut it into more digestible, bite-sized chapters.**

**Two**, you are about to examine Rikkai Dai tennis through multiple pairs of eyes, sometimes simultaneously. Try not to get too confused.

**Three**, those special character traits and endearing little quirks of just about everyone are intentionally overplayed, probably bordering on stereotype (bad, _bad_ Author!), but please understand: I couldn't help myself, I got carried away. I simply had too much fun at writing!

**Four**, while Yukimura and Yanagi are perfectly happy to use their given names among themselves, Sanada just doesn't. This, ladies and gentlemen, is not out of any authorial spite or character hate; it has no significance or deeper meaning, nor is it not even vaguely symbolic of anything. It's simply down to the fact that the Author has yet to read (or hear) Sanada Genichirou address Yukimura Seiichi as anything other than plain 'Yukimura', and even the vice versa has only happened once thus far: in Genius 300. (Go on, take a closer look if you don't believe me; I dare you, _puri_~) It _is_ curious, though, how neither Sanada nor Yukimura seems at all adverse to the idea of Yanagi Renji being 'Renji', but that probably says more about the Master's personality than it does about theirs, wouldn't you agree? (Perhaps I should add that I couldn't for the life of me imagine Rikkai's Emperor yell out "Seiichiiii!" in the totally-weird-but-at-the-same-time-100%-genuinely-_devoted_ manner that his Chibi!me belts out "Yukimuraaaa!". Normally, Manga!canon is King for this Author, but those deliciously cracktastic TeniPuri episodes of the anime have damaged my perception of Sanada's character for life, I swear. And I love it.)

**Five**, the Author is taking a leaf out of Konomi-sensei's fifty (billion) or so volumes of manga by letting time flow sideways rather than linearly.

**Six**, no matter what he does, where he goes or how old he gets, Kirihara Akaya will always be The Troublesome Brat With A Big Mouth Who They All Secretly Care A Great Deal For. Even Sanada knows it. It just so happens, that Akaya knows it too.

-#-

Disclaimer:

Sadly, I really cannot take credit for anything. Though, I might have coined the term 'Seiichish'.

* * *

**Seiichi, Stop Pacing**

-#-

"Seiichi, stop pacing," he sighed for the third time since arriving at the tennis courts approximately three minutes and forty-one seconds ago.

"It's a nuisance," the boy added, almost as an afterthought, but without any real disapproval. Yanagi Renji was analytical, yes, but never heartless. His intentions were not to scold his long-time friend and teammate, especially not considering his aforementioned long-time friend and teammate's obvious state of distress.

'_Oh_, _Seiichi_...' thought the data specialist fondly to himself as the blue-haired teen immediately stopped dead in his tracks. '_You_ _do_ _so_ _well_ _to_ _hide_ _it_, _but even you are_ _more_ _reflective_ _than_ _a mirror_.'

Indeed, while the fearsome Child of God was a tennis phenomenon and most certainly the prodigy of their generation (which in and of itself spoke a great deal for the extent of his abilities, taking into account that he had people like Seigaku's Fuji, Hyoutei's Oshitari and not to mention specimen from Rikkai's own talent pool, to contend with for that title), there were times when even the seemingly impenetrable Yukimura Seiichi was almost too, absurdly easy to read. Well, _outside_ the tennis court, that was; because once firmly _on_ it, the boy transformed into something utterly incomprehensible that rendered even Yanagi's impressive grasp of Seiichish completely useless.

But given that they were, in fact, standing on the grassy area overlooking the tidy rows of outdoor courts, the data specialist figured that it was fair game. After all, it had taken him years (which, all in all, added up to not an inconsiderable amount of time and effort even for an analyst of the Master's calibre) to reach just his current familiarity with Yukimura's various quirks and admittedly strange habits, and Yanagi suspected that he still had a long, long way to go before his fellow Demon could be declared a closed case. Assuming, of course, that this was even possible; Seiichi seemed to take an almost unholy delight in continuously defying his own data and thwarting Yanagi's efforts.

Though that said, at the present moment, the person in question was looking far from delighted.

"I'm _not_ pacing, Renji."

In an effort that traced back to hours upon hours of image training, Yukimura managed the rather enviable feat of maintaining a believable smile; if, perhaps, tinged with only a hint of annoyance. But the objection, meant as an indignant protest, sounded more pitiful than heartfelt even to his own ears, because there was no denying that the Master's observations had been no less bull's eye accurate than they usually were. Yukimura _was_ pacing and had been doing so for almost twenty minutes already (long before the first group of tentative freshmen had started to mill out on his tennis courts, and _long_ before Yanagi had finally joined him. Not that the data specialist needed to be told about that, of course). So it would be silly, really, to pretend that he wasn't being defiant and contrary just for the sake of being defiant and contrary; especially not when he was _quite_ certain that the abnormally shrewd person to his right would have anticipated this exact reaction from the very start.

The Child of God almost wished that he could sigh out loud and not just in the safety of his own head.

Naturally, abnormally shrewd or not, it went without saying that Yanagi – along with Sanada, of course, but that was a given – was one of his absolute closest and most trusted friends, and there _were_ many comforts and obvious advantages attached to committing to such intimate alliances; one such 'perk' being that it made possible the kind of insight (and here the haughty drawl of Hyoutei's flamboyant captain briefly drifted into mind, but that was entirely unintentional) that made communication quicker, easier and far less time-consuming than it otherwise might have been. But this was very much a double-edged sword; it _also_ went without saying that such a mutual (and so very privacy-invading) understanding, at any given moment of misfortune that one might rather have kept to oneself and _only_ to oneself, could be _bloody_ _annoying_.

Yukimura was having such a moment right now, and it didn't exactly help the proceedings along that he knew with abundant certainty that Yanagi Renji knew about it as well.

"I'm not pacing," he repeated, standing demonstratively still, if just for the heck of it. "In fact, I am warming up."

"I see." Yanagi's carefully expressionless features gave way for a rare smirk. The Child of God was not normally this easy to bait for a reaction. "What for, if I may ask?"

Yukimura raised a delicate eyebrow. Renji had certainly chosen an interesting time to engage in a cat-and-mouse game of skirting-around-the-real-issue. But then he supposed that his tall friend was just as bored and waiting with just as much anticipation as Yukimura was himself; though, perhaps it was only to be expected from the Master of Data Tennis that he would do a far superior job of hiding it.

'_It_ _must_ _be_ _the_ _eyes_,' the Child of God thought with just a little bit of envy.

Yes. It was _definitely_ the eyes.

"We're at the tennis courts," he said out loud, pleasantly as always, but _much_ too innocently for it to be completely sincere. Yanagi was a meticulous fellow and a cunning strategist, and Yukimura wasn't so naive that he didn't know that he was being herded into some kind of corner (only metaphorically speaking, of course, seeing that they were standing outside in the open air). But all the same, not knowing what kind of trap he was willingly walking himself into made things more interesting, never mind _challenging_; and Yukimura had always quite enjoyed a challenge. "So I would have thought that to be self-explanatory, is it not?"

"Usually, yes, but today are the tryouts, Seiichi." Yanagi's smirk grew wider. _Check_ _mate_ and _match_ _point_, _Yukimura_-_buchou_. Well, for now, at least. "Practise has been suspended."

Yes, afternoon practise for all returning members had indeed been cancelled, and everyone (team regulars and third-years included) were expected to help with the freshmen registration process and oversee the selection matches. It was a system that had been completely foreign to all of them (Yanagi not included) when they entered Rikkai Daigaku Fuzoku Koukou the previous year. Back in junior high, eager tennis club wannabes had simply registered to join and had then been assigned different court duties and practise schedules depending on age and, to a certain extent, ability. The all-important ranking matches to establish the house pecking order had been reserved for second- and third-year members only (though this particular rule allowed for exceptions, provided of course that the exceptions in questions were exceptionally extraordinary), and these were normally held a few weeks into the tournament season in an attempt to give everyone an equal chance at settling in properly first.

In the high school section, on the other hand, simply joining the team was a two-day trial (for the few talented enough to survive the first day of qualifying matches, otherwise just the one) and in accordance to time-honoured tradition that predated even Takahashi-sensei, the elderly club advisor Yukimura had inherited from at least thirty-five captains before him, tryouts were scheduled on the last two days of the first week of school. And in a similar fashion, registration was supposed to begin at exactly three-thirty on the first day and end at four o'clock on the dot, and not a heartbeat later. But courtesy of a more forgiving captain, whose name was buried in the tennis club's proud history somewhere, the closed and firmly regulated system contained an additional, much nicer principle; one that prescribed a so-called 'grace period', which in effect was an extra five minute extension of the deadline for the freshmen to fill in their registration forms with the necessary information, hand them in to an upperclassman to sign and to scramble off to the tennis courts for the actual tryouts. Even though this principle had never formally been adopted by the tennis club, it served _de_ _facto_ as a neat little addendum to the official policies, and as such it was observed anyway.

It was reassuring (and in true Rikkai Dai-spirit), however, that once the initial paperwork was out of the way, that same 'softie' captain seemed to have had no qualms whatsoever about pitting the new members against each other in order to determine who (if anyone at all) could be called back the following day for the most important ranking tournament of the year. The Child of God had been told by his predecessor that this in particular was a practise that stood above even tradition – and which had remained virtually unchanged since the dawn of tennis at Rikkai Daigaku Fuzoku Koukou – in a not-so subtle warning to the freshman captain to _keep it that way_. Senpai needed have worried, though; there was no denying that this way of immediately settling things was many times harsher than even the Big Three had been used to, but deciding on the first-stringers so soon meant that the right dynamics could be encouraged within the team from the word go.

"So it is," Yukimura condescended to agree, finally and reluctantly, when he could think of no wittier response. He would admit defeat this time around, but only because there were more pressing matters at hand than casual banter between friends.

"Time, Renji?" he then demanded, in his buchou-voice, which immediately extinguished all feelings of playfulness from the conversation.

The taller of the two acknowledged the sudden change of pace with an obedient flick of his wrist. "Four minutes and seven seconds," Yanagi reported, appropriately neutral. "But then there is the grace period, which gives him another five minutes."

When Yukimura remained curiously quiet, he added, "That is approximately nine minutes in total. There is still time."

"Hm" was all he received in terms of an intelligent response.

From the corner of his eye, which he was forced to crack open by just a little, Yanagi watched the other boy silently gaze out over the tennis courts. Now, if anyone at all had happened to be, say, gawking stupidly at them, which 98% of the star-struck youngsters in fact were (but then, who could really blame them? Yukimura Seiichi and Yanagi Renji may have been regarded as two fairly ordinary, if academically able, members of the vast student body by the hardworking teaching staff, but to just about everyone else they were already _legendary_ and the mains of so many tales of on-court heroics that no-one had _dared_ to question Yukimura's immediate elevation to team captain at the start of the previous year) and with varying degrees of _in_discretion at that, then they were likely to have assumed that the smaller – but nevertheless _godlier_ – of the two was far away in his own thoughts.

But the Master, who knew better than most not to judge the Child of God on appearances alone, concluded that rather than daydreaming, he was quietly casting his judgement on the sight in front of him. And if the frown of displeasure slowly forming over his extraordinary pretty features (the data specialist sometimes wondered what it felt like to be 83% prettier than any of the girls he was ever likely to meet; not that he planned on finding out anytime soon, because unlike _some_ people, Yanagi was not quite so thrill-seeking, stupid or suicidal as to _ask_) was anything to go by, it would seem that said judgement was severe indeed.

"He should have been here already," Yukimura murmured under his breath, feeling decidedly dissatisfied with the turn of events thus far. Of course, it wasn't worry or a bad case of nerves that was making him strangely 'jumpy' today; what, he – the Child of God – _anxious_? Really now, that would be the day! Still, he was feeling unusually agitated, and for no good reason at all, but he'd be _damned_ if that Yanagi Renji, with his unfair advantage of both friendly insight and razor-sharp intellect, hadn't picked up on that already too!

Still, he refused to give in to his brewing annoyance and let it show. After all, to the crowd of boys looking at him from the other side of the chain link fence, he was Yukimura Seiichi, widely considered the most talented out of the new crop of up-and-coming young talent (all things and narrowly beat-out rivals considered) of their generation, captain of the most influential high school tennis team in the nation, Rikkai's resident demigod of demonic proportions, the paragon of a nameless terror of the most terrifying kind, the source of mythical power, the stuff of legends... and so on and so forth.

Honestly, though, sometimes Yukimura just wanted to roll his eyes at it all. While the attention was flattering and not entirely unwanted (yes, he admitted quite freely to housing a decent-sized ego, anything else would be strange and rather inhuman, but Yukimura went about feeding his as quietly as he could; as opposed to Tokyo-based colleague Atobe, who still travelled with his own personal cheering squad), he would much prefer to get on with more interesting things in life. Things that were more important, that truly mattered; things like family and friends, art, gardening and playing some actual tennis.

Well. His personal preferences aside, Yukimura was well aware of the importance of – and the great power in – maintaining appearances and upholding reputations. Had he and Yanagi been alone, however, he would surely have given in to temptation and kicked the round pebble by his feet (then watching it skid across the well-kept lawns around the tennis courts with a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction) a long, _long_ time ago. But now, as it happened, they weren't; and the mildly agitated Child of God resorted to picking up the offending piece of smooth rock, weighing it in his hand momentarily before removing it out of sight entirely by slipping it into the right-hand pocket of his yellow trousers. Wasn't there a saying: out of sight, out of mind?

"The half hour for registration is almost up. What do we know?" he continued in a softer tone to give himself some much-needed time to recollect his thoughts. Diverting his attention to his precious patch of asphalted turf (tactfully ignoring the people congregating on it) seemed to help, and he regarded it with much love and affection. To be able to call all of that 'his' was a considerable honour; it was a privilege that had been passed down from one captain to another over generations before him, and even though the tennis courts at Rikkai Daigaku Fuzoku Koukou had borne witness to innumerable accounts of glory and heartbreak over the years, Yukimura was determined to burden them with yet some more history of his own before their time here was up – and where the former (glory) was _much_ preferred over disappointment.

"It's difficult to say," the Master admitted none too happily. "I don't have any fresh data on this particular subject."

Yukimura spared him a quick glance full of query, and Yanagi couldn't help but to succumb to a momentary grimace of annoyance. Indeed, any data specialist worth the pages of his notebook would agree that not possessing perfectly up-to-date observations was a personal failure well on par with the disgrace of being duped into collecting intelligence that was either inaccurate or completely worthless – at which a particularly unsettling instance involving their own Yagyuu, Seigaku's Kaidoh, the ABC Tournament and a most _unorthodox_ Switch instantly came to mind. Of course, Yanagi felt absolutely no sympathy whatsoever for the fools that made up the supposed 'data gathering' team from Murigaoka; not only had they dared to insult the then-ill Yukimura and affront Rikkai Dai as a whole, but the sloppy execution and blinding _incompetence_ stabbed at his professional pride. So for someone of Yanagi Renji's renowned mental faculties and might, admitting to such a serious shortcoming was too shameful for words; especially when he, while not exactly inventing the discipline _per se_, could at the very least lay legitimate claim to having perfected it.

"I can only base my analysis on extrapolation and best-fit approximations, but there is a 96% chance that the reason for the delay is in some way academic." Yanagi paused, running through a few more calculations before considering it sufficiently plausible to marginally amend his answer, "Quite possibly attitude and/or behaviourally related."

Yukimura nodded to indicate that he understood, and to confirm that he would accept Yanagi's estimate for now. "What about the other 4%, then?" he inquired impatiently. "What can we attribute them to?"

As expected, Yanagi's reply was instant.

"_Niou_."

The Master had anticipated this exact question all along, because he knew better than to think that the Child of God would be satisfied unless all the unknowns, regardless of how small and seemingly insignificant, had been fully accounted for. In Yanagi's humble (but by 66% admittedly biased) opinion, it was that near-obsessive reverence of precision that elevated Yukimura Seiichi high above the heads of his many rivals, including Hyoutei's Atobe, Shitenhouji's Shiraishi and the nowadays mostly absent Tezuka Kunimitsu (whose claim to such monstrous fame was, also in Yanagi's humble opinion, overplayed by as much as 46.8%. Approached rationally, objectively and without the automatic adulation that in certain circles tended to attach itself to the mere mention of the Tezuka name, it quickly became apparent that the former Seigakuian captain's was a record far from stellar: among his documented losses, official and otherwise, were defeats to long-time rival Atobe, teammates Fuji and Echizen and to Rikkai Dai's very own captain and vice-captain, respectively. His victory against Shitenhouji's Chitose had been impressive enough, however, and that was a match that had taken place almost two _whole_ years ago. Admittedly, Yanagi hadn't been following Tezuka's campaigns in Europe very closely, so perhaps it wouldn't hurt to update his data, just in case. Sadaharu was sure to possess all the necessary facts and more, and they were due for their monthly get-together anyway).

'_So Niou_, _eh_...' Yukimura needed only a split-second to accept Yanagi's claim as the truth; well, that sounded about right.

Truly, Yanagi's findings were hardly anything out of the ordinary, but – Yukimura narrowed his eyes at the mere thought – if that Niou Masaharu did _anything_ to jeopardize these particular tennis tryouts, there would be hell to pay. He was normally fairly lenient with Niou and his creative schemes (for one, his expertise in trickery and deception bordered on artistry, and deserved to be admired in its own right, but Yukimura also rather enjoyed watching the chaos unfold, much to Sanada's chagrin. Even though the Master claimed that his targets were selected at random, hence dividing any victimization surprisingly evenly among all the regulars with the obvious exception of Yukimura, Sanada tended to feature quite heavily in Niou's more elaborate designs. Yukimura usually stepped in before the fun got out of hand completely, but he would probably act quicker, and more often, if it hadn't turned out that Sanada had the most _amusing_ reactions to unexpected things), but it really went without saying that if even _one_ of his regulars was affected in any such way that it inconvenienced Tennis, Yukimura would show no mercy.

The Head Demon and the Trickster of the Courts reached that neat little understanding shortly after Niou showed up at the tennis club back in junior high. Freshmen and regulars alike had lived in fear as Niou gleefully sized up first then-captain Moriyama-senpai – who had initially put up a decent fight but eventually folded like a bad hand – and later Yukimura's powers to terrify. Unfazed by the exponential rise in the amount of mischief around him, Yukimura had gone about his everyday business as usual, calmly calling Niou's bluffs as he went along, until about a month into the season when Niou was finally forced to give up on his fellow first-year as a lost cause; and grudgingly agreed to negotiate the terms of his surrender.

So far, it had been a fruitful arrangement for everyone involved: it allowed Niou (whose mind, Yukimura had been unsurprised to discover, fell nothing short of brilliant once he applied it to something constructive) his own brand of fun to alleviate whatever boredom that led him to continuously devise and execute one ingenious plan after another in the first place, while it guaranteed that the members of the regular squad were fit to play tennis at an adequate Rikkai Dai-standard. And Yukimura was confident that it would last for a long time yet. In any case, if all else failed, a reliable source (Yanagi) had confirmed that it was _way_ scarier (by as much as 237% to be exact) to answer to a moderately irritated Yukimura than a furious Sanada; fear was as effective an insurance policy as any, and it could be very useful when applied carefully and sensibly.

But the Child of God's self-satisfied (okay, fine, _smug_) musings came to an abrupt end when a thoughtful Yanagi added with noticeable reluctance, "Well, yes. Or it could possibly be due to an accident, sudden illness, or death."

"..._death_?" the second-year repeated sharply, sounding more worried than he should. "Renji, what on _earth_ are you talking about?"

Observing Yukimura's obvious discomfort at the idea of anything untoward (that _wasn't_ orchestrated by Niou, he noted), Yanagi decided that an explanation was in order. "The problem lies with our Trickster," the Master began to clarify, "and the fact that he's such a considerable variable all in himself that there is no way to establish exactly how much of the remaining 4% should be attributed to his doing. And with accidents, illnesses, and death as plausible unknowns in 99% of all known cases of this kind, it _is_ possible that Niou in fact bears only a maximum of 3.2% of any possible blame. But with only partial data at my disposal, to actually _verify_ this is next to impossible for me at this point."

Yanagi very nearly hung his head in shame. He changed his mind at the last second, remembering that they were in public and that it would reflect poorly on the tennis club if he did, especially with so many pairs of eyes pinned adoringly at his person. Still, he felt that he ought to at least apologize for the inconclusiveness, and so he did.

"I'm... sorry, Seiichi," he said, careful to avoid any eye-contact, "for not being more specific than this."

Yukimura felt certain that had Renji's eyes been visible to the world, they would most likely have been filled with regret – or at least looked deeply troubled. He was well aware of the immense pride that Yanagi took in his uncanny ability to instantly conjure up all kinds of facts and figures on demand, and he figured that having to admit that there were things that even he simply did. not. know was equivalent to the Child of God being beaten at his own game – figuratively and literally – by that big, silent boy from Hyoutei. The news of Tezuka's narrow victory over the copycat specialist (who had been flying under everyone's radar until those drawn out, overly dramatic qualifying rounds) had not passed the twice-defending Champions unnoticed, and Yukimura supposed that the boy, roughly Akaya's age and now a high school freshman, would rejoin the ranks of his senpai-taichi as a regular on his team. In fact, he rather hoped so. It would be interesting to see for himself the development in the boy's tennis, assuming that any significant progress had been made over the past year; after all, even the most promising young talents did not always turn out as expected.

Well, his reflections on Tezuka, Hyoutei and their last National Tournament of junior high (Rikkai's least successful in terms of silverware) aside, Yukimura thought it best to reassure the Master that despite of this relatively minor hiccup in an otherwise nearly faultless service record, he still had faith in his fact-spouting capabilities.

"No, that will be fine for now," he told his friend as firmly as he could. "Thank you."

"You say that, but your legs clearly don't agree with you," remarked a somewhat pacified Yanagi pointedly after a moment of contemplative silence.

"Seiichi, you're pacing again," he added, a wry smirk slowly creeping back into place—

Oh, he knew that he really shouldn't, what with the data situation still far from resolved, but he couldn't help himself: Seiichi was just _too_ predictable.

—and Yukimura immediately regretted his earlier generosity. After all, wasn't Yanagi's negligence both embarrassing and unforgivable? Granted that he was remarkably well-versed on the capabilities of the members of their own team and those belonging to relevant rival schools, but wasn't it his _primary_ responsibility to keep an eye on the talent growing in Rikkai's own backyard? And if nothing else, was _this_ any way of treating his captain (and not to mention, close friend!) and repaying him for his kindness and understanding? Surely, that couldn't be!

Against his will, the Child of God found that it was becoming increasingly difficult to maintain an appropriate level of Zen. "I _told_ you, Renji. I'm not pacing, I'm—"

"Seiichi, extrapolated data or not, he will make it on time." Yanagi suddenly spoke with such utter conviction that Yukimura cast a curious glance in his direction, not once but twice. "And you know what I think about absolute certainties."

Surprised and largely undecided as to how to appropriately respond to the Master's unexpectedly passionate display of what could only be described as 'blind faith' (something that was _completely_ unexpected of him in its own right), Yukimura decided that it was best for everyone if the subject was moved to safer, more familiar ground.

"Where is Sanada?" he asked, rather abruptly. "I told him to be early, but I haven't seen him all day. He's not sick, is he?"

"Not at all. He was quite the opposite, in fact, when I last saw him," replied Yanagi readily, secretly rather relieved that Yukimura for some reason had initiated such a sudden change of topic. He hadn't planned on sounding quite so high-spirited and gung-ho about it, but with Yukimura looking so unhappy, he felt obliged to do something proactive, and _might_ have overdone it a little. "He arrived at the changing rooms shortly before I left, so unless he has managed to somehow lock himself inside the club house with _your_ key – or has otherwise fallen prey to our Trickster at some point between then and now, which is a highly unlikely scenario since Genichirou is _much_ too experienced and paranoid to lower his guard around Niou – I see no reason why he shouldn't join us at any moment."

It was a perfectly reasonable explanation, but Yukimura's final verdict on the matter was swift like Sanada's _Fuu_ and just as unforgiving:

"Still, he's late."

"So he is," admitted Yanagi coolly. That the vice-captain could expect to be severely punished for his transgression was a foregone conclusion, and the poor soul had yet to even arrive.

"Sanada is _never_ late," Yukimura insisted.

The Master correctly sensed the challenge and frowned lightly in concentration. Thankfully, this was a comparatively simple analysis that required data that he _did_ have, but his conclusion was far from pleasant. The Child of God was _not_ going to like this.

"I understand what would lead you to surmise that, Seiichi," he said. "But I'm afraid that you're wrong."

Then, Yanagi waited.

He was treading on rather dangerous ground now, he knew, because if there were _anything_ that the blue-haired boy disliked, it was being told that he wrong. The Master had his well-founded suspicions, although he had yet to confirm as much, but it really would seem that it was right up there with the displeasure of having lost a tennis match. The severe lack of data on the issue stemmed primarily from the fact that Yukimura lost at tennis only very rarely. That one time thus far had been to Echizen Ryoma, who for reasons yet to be revealed, lost to no-one, and their battle against one another had been so spectacular to watch that it overshadowed even the eventual victor; something that had since provoked much speculation in the tennis community on whether or not anyone even really lost in that match, despite of the numbers on the scoreboard. (Almost two years on, Yanagi was still 81% undecided on the matter, and Sadaharu wasn't faring much better.) Regardless, one thing was abundantly clear: Yukimura Seiichi was not a boy to take kindly to accusations of being mistaken.

But data did not lie; even to please the descendants of gods.

Yukimura had apparently reached a similar conclusion, because he merely cocked a brow to indicate that he was listening but that further elaboration would be required on Yanagi's part before he could be declared properly convinced.

The Master nodded obligingly. "I distinctly recall that _one_ time when—"

Someone coughed. "Yukimura. Yanagi."


	2. part 2

The Master and the Child of God had been so deeply engrossed in their conversation that they failed to notice when the Emperor finally joined them. It seemed, however, that they were quite alone in that discovery; perhaps years of constantly gauging his surroundings had ultimately turned habit into a 100% natural reflex (and there was a convincing 76% in favour of such a useful evolutionary adjustment), but the data specialist made the off-hand observation that with the completion of the Troika, the gawking from the courts had reached a new high.

"_Sanada_."

Yanagi took a discreet half-step back, offering a silent apology to his soon-to-be chewed out friend for leaving him so exposed to the wrath that was sure (by a 352% chance) to be unleashed upon him within the next short moments; while Sanada, on his part, decided that giving Yukimura his perfectly rational explanation as to why he was only a few minutes late (to an impromptu pre-tryout meeting that Sanada wasn't all that certain he had even agreed to in the first place, though only a fool would ever tell Yukimura that) was going to be a complete waste of breath. Sanada knew that tone and steadied himself for what was to come. One needn't be the all-knowing Yanagi to know that this was one of those rare instances where it was saner – and indefinitely much safer – to just let it go without a fight, and take whatever punishment like a man.

Besides, as if years' worth of dealing with Yukimura wasn't incentive enough to quell all stray thoughts of rebellious nature, the Emperor could discern his father's deep, commanding voice inside his head quite clearly:

_Go on. Take it like a man, son. Do not disgrace the family name any further by refusing._

"You're _late_." Yukimura's velvety smile grew a few more shades more steely, which usually meant that the captain was about to really dish it out. "I would have you run..." he trailed off, expertly waiting for the silence to become sufficiently stale before looking up at his old friend sternly and expectantly.

Unsure of what exactly could have possessed the Child of God to do so, but more than willing to accept it without a second thought, Sanada wisely heeded to the unspoken 'but I won't because today is special, but don't think I'll forget so don't do it again', and replied in a way of acknowledging this unusual act of charity,

"Aa."

Instantly appeased, Yukimura relaxed and waved it off with a warmer smile before asking, "Did you see the others on your way here? Are they behaving?"

The Master had watched the brief exchange, paying special attention to the part where he knew Yukimura's smile would suddenly revert back from indicating 'a speedy demise' to its usual 'sugar and spice and everything nice', with lightly furrowed brows. He had witnessed too many interactions of similarly strange nature in their time together as Rikkai Dai Demons, but even though privileged access – and subsequent prolonged exposure – to both of them meant that this, which was a most _peculiar_ affair, no longer fazed him quite like it used to (because that very first time it happened had been a mystifying and positively horrid experience), Yanagi was still at a loss over what had actually played out between them for Yukimura, who was notoriously stubborn, to change his mind about something so readily.

Even four years (!) after befriending Yukimura Seiichi and Sanada Genichirou, the data specialist had yet to determine just how Sanada managed to smooth over a transgression, which in Yukimura's rulebook was serious enough to warrant tens of laps around campus (twenty or so on a good day, while on a bad they averaged out in their _hundreds_) with a single syllable, 'Aa'.

Only one thing was certain: whatever it was that Genichirou did, it was _completely_ illogical.

Yanagi had analyzed the matter thoroughly and researched it half to death, and still he felt not one step closer to the truth. The inclusion of the 'Aa' was obviously important, that much was clear; it was the rest of it that was frustrating and bizarre all at the same time, and giving rise to a number of possibilities: was it an apology? _Unlikely_. Was it an explanation? _Doubtful_. Was it an excuse? _Absurd_.

Besides, did it even qualify as a proper sentence? Well, he supposed that it did, technically, at least. But that was a moot point (and probably rather petty, too).

—just _what on earth_ was it?

Did it possess some kind of hidden meaning that he, Yanagi Renji, Rikkai's _Master_, wasn't aware of? Surely, that was _not_ possible.

Or was it?

It was a messy and dissatisfying situation that defied logic in a most disturbing way, and Yanagi did not like or enjoy it one bit, not even as an intellectual, wholly hypothetical 'imagine if' exercise. Thinking about it too much or for too long tended to make his head spin, palms sweat – and worse still, it would cast into doubt the workings and methodology of his own mind, begging into question his very _existence_. If he no longer was able to accurately differentiate between the reasonable and the nonsensical, right from wrong, order from chaos, who _was_ he then? Certainly not a Yanagi Renji _he_ wanted to be.

Meanwhile, Sanada nodded in response to Yukimura's inquiry about their absent teammates, blissfully unaware that he stood entirely to blame for Yanagi's mild bout of identity crisis.

"Jackal is overseeing registration," the Emperor said, before unleashing upon the other two a hard and exceptionally pointed stare – the one Yukimura had formally, but fondly, dubbed the 'Sanada Look' – and its silent message was lost on neither the Master nor the Child of God. It was Sanada's own special way of saying that Jackal was carrying out his duties 'like he was supposed to', which could only mean that someone else on the team was up to something he shouldn't.

Picking forlornly at the charred remains of his shattered personality, and consoling himself with the fact that these were some fairly routine calculations, Yanagi quickly deduced that this 'someone' Sanada was referring to in the quiet was Niou Masaharu with 78%'s likelihood and Marui Bunta by 22%. The data specialist ran through the numbers three times (for accuracy, not luck) just to be certain, but everything followed suit like it was supposed to: the method was sound, all relevant variables had been carefully considered and weighed against each other, everything could be accounted for. It was logical and proper and made perfect, perfect sense.

The Master felt a tad bit better about himself. Now, all Sanada had to do was to confirm that his conclusion was the correct one—

Completely oblivious to the intensity of Yanagi's gaze from behind his fully drawn eyelids, Sanada took a moment to cross his arms protectively over his chest. Then he ground out, "I caught Niou and Marui slacking off. They're running laps around the second gymnasium as we speak. _Tarundoru_!"

—for Yanagi Renji to feel as good as new, and to discreetly divert his eyes from the Emperor's face before the latter realized that he had been stared at.

Sanada scowled. After exchanging a few words with Yanagi by the club house and changing into his tennis uniform, he had stopped by the registration area, just in case he might be needed for anything, only to confirm that the Trickster indeed was terrorizing their first-year applicants. And since Marui seemed hell-bent on annoying the life out of his doubles partner (who took his job seriously and therefore was deserving of some much-needed protection), Sanada took pity on Jackal and sent the volley specialist off along with Niou.

Assigning laps (and being obeyed, mostly) was one of the few joys to his position on the team, and an important, mitigating factor in his continued participation in the circus cleverly disguised as the best high school tennis club in the country. But even so – _mattaku_ – it was more trouble than it was worth, sometimes.

"But I didn't see Yagyuu," the long-suffering vice-captain announced with renewed disapproval. "Apparently, he had some business with the Student Council after school. Something _you_ seem to have been informed of already, Yukimura..."

And in his head, Sanada was hoping on all that was even remotely holy that Yukimura's response would be affirmative, because then (and _only_ then) would the neat little story behind Yagyuu's unexpected absence, which Jackal said Marui claimed Niou had told him after personally hearing it straight from the horse's mouth, _actually_ be _true_. Although, why Yagyuu Hiroshi should suddenly confide such things to _Niou_ of all people was more than enough to make anyone suspicious, Sanada was reluctant to even consider the alternative. That for good reason: there was an abundance of difficulty attached to keeping track of Niou and his one-man escapades as it was, and it wouldn't do if the infuriating Trickster of the Courts somehow had managed to corrupt the polite and level-headed Yagyuu into doing his bidding. Kami-sama only knew what serious, irreversible damage he had already inflicted on Akaya – and to a certain extent, Marui.

It was only by some anonymous deity's infinite pity and wisdom that their Gentleman had remained untainted so far (though certainly not from any lack of trying on Niou's part), but after almost four long years of frazzled nerves and on constant mayhem-alert, Sanada knew better than to count his blessings. (They still had two more years of high school to go, and beyond that...? It would have been anyone's guess hadn't Yanagi in all likelihood worked out a number of plausible scenarios for that, too.) Hell, Sanada was hard-pressed to even poke at all the bad karma that seemed to fall into his lap on a near daily basis, which undoubtedly were misdirected divine punishments for the evil deeds committed every so often by that _puri_–_piyo_–whatever-_ing_ fool of a regular.

Indeed, the Emperor's long and colourful experience with dealing with Niou had taught him that even when decidedly god-awful could things really get_ that much worse_. He was just waiting for the day that his fickle luck would finally run out, and the aforementioned heavenly guardian finally abandoned him and his plight for good. But until then, he'd be _damned_ if he let Yagyuu slip into Niou's waiting clutches. Tennis matches were one thing, but one Trickster off the courts was more than enough, thank you very much; _two_ of them (heavily aided and abetted by Akaya, no doubt) would only drive Sanada into the wall more quickly than tennis, school work, family expectations, Yukimura, his other extracurricular commitments and a vague worry about the future already were.

No. It didn't matter how he looked at it, Niou was... He was... _Mattaku_, that boy was trouble.

So. _much_. trouble.

Yukimura had been watching the dark aura forming around his long-time friend and confidant with poorly hid amusement. It didn't take a genius (or Renji) to guess where Sanada's thoughts were headed, but even though Yukimura was well aware that there under normal circumstances was preciously little love lost between Rikkai's Emperor and its Trickster (Yukimura would have been a very poor captain indeed if he didn't notice these things), it was a given that their teamwork would be flawless should it come down to the tough or downright ugly. Huff and puff and grumble as he may, Sanada knew that he could always rely on Niou to clinch that crucial win if needed be, reassured that it would be done in devastating style. Trick and tease and provoke as _he_ may, Niou respected Sanada's drive and fire, because that same ambition burned just as fiercely within each member of the team. Their pride in themselves and in each other united them, kept them together and apart from everyone else on the circuit, and it was _this_ (and not discipline, dedication or superior training facilities, though these did help) that made Rikkai Dai so great.

Something Yukimura doubted _very_ much, however, was that either tennis player in question knew how deeply rooted his loyalty, not only to Team Rikkai as a whole but to _one_ _another_, actually was. And so the Child of God kept quiet about it and let them get on with life the best they could without being none the wiser (and he had ensured the Yanagi would do the same, of course). After all, on good days, Sanada and Niou were quality entertainment, and even the elite members of Rikkai Daigaku Fuzoku Koukou's almighty tennis club needed some entertainment once in a while: strictly all work and no play made for dull and unmotivated tennis players, and dull and unmotivated tennis players tended did not do too well in winning titles, trophies and National recognition.

"Yes, Yagyuu told me," confirmed the captain breezily and with small a shrug of the shoulders. "He'll be here as soon as it's over."

Well, that was sure to put Sanada out of his most immediate misery, at least for now. Honestly, though, there was a person that needed to take better care of himself and do something about that constant frown on his face! Teasing him about it had been fun and games when they were younger, but of late Yukimura had surprised himself with feeling genuine concern about the state of Sanada's forehead; at the rate he was going, it would be wrinklier than an umeboshi before they had even hit twenty.

"_Scheduling_ _events_ _last_ _minute_ _like_ _this_ _is_ _bothersome_," added Yanagi, in a tone that could easily have been mistaken for mildly apologetic. "_But_ _at_ _least_ _it_ _is_ _only_ _a_ _short_ _meeting_."

Yukimura raised an eyebrow. "Those were Yagyuu's exact words at lunch, which we ate in the classroom, just the two of us."

"I thought that you might have. When neither of you were at the usual place, it was too much of a coincidence to think that you should both have chosen today to eat somewhere else separately. But regarding your thoughts about being watched..." The data specialist paused triumphantly. "Genichirou was with me the entire time and can vouch for my innocence."

"I never said you did." Yukimura's eyes were sparkling. However pointless, it was a welcome distraction, waiting around like this was making him jittery and even the Child of God could do with a master class once in a while; Yanagi was just _so_ _very_ _good_ at what he did best. "But then, if I may ask, how could you give a verbatim recital of a private conversation unless—?"

"Unless I was there to personally hear it, was what you wanted to say, am I right? Well, it is actually quite simple," replied the Master pleasantly, proudly and confidently. "I know you. I know Yagyuu. And data never lies."

The Emperor was listening to the friendly banter with only a quarter of an ear, instead focusing on discreetly exhaling the breath he didn't know he had been holding in the first place. To say that he was relieved, not only for Yagyuu's sake but also for his own, was an understatement; Sanada had already assigned Niou tens of laps for being annoying and disruptive, so _what_ _else_ could he do to punish the punk had it turned out that he supplied the others with dud information? (It wouldn't be the first time _that_ happened, and hardly the last.) But creative punishments had never been Sanada's forte, which he usually didn't mind since those were Yukimura's department anyway, though the Child of God tended to be inexplicably tolerant when it came to Rikkai's resident swindler and his assorted arsenal of devilry. (Sanada had initially suspected much foul play, and possibly blackmail from Niou's side, until he remembered that the only form of victimization that Yukimura was ever likely to agree to, involved other people. In other words, their fearless leader was an Untouchable, an impossible target even for Niou, and it was a rare instance where the Emperor and the Trickster of the Courts were in perfect agreement: sometimes, it was better for everyone to just let sleeping captains lie, because Yukimura Seiichi could be a very scary boy when he put his mind to it.)

Anyway, regardless of what Niou did and what Yukimura _didn't_ do to prevent him from doing it again, Sanada supposed that there was little that he – a mere, lowly vice-captain, whose only wish was for the members of his team to calmly and collectedly go about their day-to-day business of pulverising all forms of resistance as they battled their way to the highest pinnacle of achievement and _stayed there _– could really do about it. Even though the mere notion was in direct conflict with his nature and upbringing, Sanada had learned rather quickly not to dwell on such trivial matters as 'honour', 'shame' and 'ethics' when it came to the tennis club's internal politics; this, if only to keep safe his own dignity. It had been a lesson about 'horizons' (Yukimura's damn word, not his) and tolerance fraught with perils and embarrassment (the latter courtesy of Niou, who else?), but once Sanada encountered something worth learning, it had a tendency to stick.

And so the Emperor decided to abandon all further thoughts about his problematic teammates and to deal with them, and whatever disorder and mayhem they would inevitably bring along with them, one at the time as they crossed his path; which they would, _oh_ _yes_, sooner rather than later. Why? Because they always did, was why.

_Mattaku_, that bunch managed to get into trouble no matter where they went, didn't they?

"So this is it?" he barked, a bit too loudly, gesturing impatiently towards the tennis courts where the congregation was suddenly doing its outmost to avoid eye-contact with him. _"That's all?"_

"So far, you mean?" Yanagi finished for him, calmly as ever. The data specialist was 72% certain that there was more to that statement than what met his _membrane_ _tympani_, but he was reluctant to press the matter; outside of tennis, Sanada tended to react rather badly to pressure.

But his patience (and perceptiveness) was rewarded almost immediately when Sanada muttered, "He's late."

"But I'm _sure_ he'll be here very soon." Yukimura's voice was silky with danger, openly daring the vice-captain to disagree. "Isn't that right, _Renji_?"

Yanagi had on his part been perfectly content with his role as an innocent bystander, but if Yukimura thought it necessary to drag him into whatever was going on between him and Sanada, Yanagi would go along with it quite willingly. He might gain some new, interesting data from the experience, and he _was_ curious.

"By all means," replied the data specialist nonchalantly. "I believe so, yes."

Sanada, however, looked dubious at best and cast a not-so subtle glance at his wristwatch. "But—"

"_Sanada_." The Child of God raised his voice by a mere fraction, breaking neither his smile nor eye-contact with the Emperor as he kindly drove home the point that deity was forever, whereas even the bluest-blooded resident royalty was not. "_I wouldn't_ _argue_ _with_ _Renji_, if I were you."

If Sanada's posture had been stiff before, it was positively rigid now. But this was a commonly documented side effect of being subjected to Yukimura's infamous Smile-Eye-Tone combo (along with cold sweats, elevated blood pressure, nightmares and headaches), which incidentally had given rise to the 'Game, SET, Match' chant the year before. But the Master found that the demonstration left him unusually cold and unimpressed. Seiichi was certainly flexing his muscles; that much was almost _painfully_ obvious, but the whole thing had been uncharacteristically blunt and lacking in its usual touch of lethal finesse. Of course, that was not to say that the effort wasn't rather excessive to begin with; and, all things considered, any intervention on the behalf of the intimidated vice-captain was not only justified but fair. But then again, Genichirou _had_ without a doubt brought it upon himself this time, and Yanagi wasn't above waiting a few more seconds just to watch him sweat. It was a rare opportunity to gather intelligence on the Emperor in a stressful situation (which could quite possibly result in some very useful data for later), but there was also the Law to consider, and it was harsh with the price of self-inflicted stupidity high. As it should be, though; borrowing one of Sanada's favourite expressions, they would never get anywhere from slacking off.

"Data doesn't lie, Genichirou," the data specialist reprimanded lightly once he deemed that Sanada had had enough. Then he nodded in the direction of the tennis courts. "Over there are some former regulars from the middle school section. National level."

"Is that so?" Yukimura's default smile indicated that professional tennis players or not, he held only a lukewarm interest in the proceedings thus far, but would humour Yanagi regardless. "Anyone we should be particularly interested in, then?"

"As far as I am aware, which is by no means inconsiderable, I might add..." Yanagi paused, making a point of ignoring Sanada's obvious rolling of his eyes in favour of emphasizing that his knowledge indeed stretched both far and wide and came rather handy in situations like these. After the data fiasco earlier, he had everything to prove and was determined to do it. "There is just the one. His name is Kobayashi Daichi."

"Kobayashi Daichi?" repeated Yukimura, regarding the data specialist curiously.

This was certainly unexpected, but if Yanagi Renji thought highly enough of the boy's abilities to mention his name specially, then this Kobayashi-kun was someone out of the ordinary and noteworthy in one way or another. After all, wasn't it any self-respecting captain's most sacred duty to take pity upon untried and untested talent, to take it under his figurative wing, to nurture and guide it, and to refine it into something both unique and spectacular (before finally unleashing it to wreak havoc on the unsuspecting competition)? But even though the Child of God was renowned for the triumphs of his own side-project from junior high, he couldn't help the small, unwanted twinge of envy whenever he stopped to think about his former counterpart at Seigaku. There was absolutely no denying it, and the verdict among tennis players nationwide was unanimous: Tezuka Kunimitsu was a lucky, lucky bastard and had seriously hit the jackpot with Echizen Ryoma—

"Seiichi?"

Yanagi sounded impatient, and Yukimura quickly dispelled all thoughts about people who nowadays only featured in occasional, spontaneous get-togethers, to concentrate more fully on the prospect of a new, exciting protégé.

"I've never heard of him, so he can't be one of ours." Yukimura turned to his vice-captain. "What do you think, Sanada?"

The Emperor frowned. It was still too early for anything to be completely certain, but one thing was already blindingly obvious: the last time Yukimura had showed active, personal interest in someone younger than them, Sanada had been forced to deal with that younger someone's bad attitude and annoying quirks for nearly two whole years. _One_ difficult, unruly kouhai was bad enough as far as Sanada was concerned, and he wasn't overly enthusiastic about the idea of adding to that tally so soon. Or ever. But that didn't mean that Yanagi didn't have him curious about this Kobayashi boy: real talent (no matter how snarky, disruptive and disobedient) was hard to come by even at the distinguished Rikkai Dai-schools and much too precious to be overlooked due to personal prejudices (no matter how often these had been proven correct in the past).

"I don't know that name either," he declared before turning to the data specialist expectantly. "Well? Who is he?"

The Master smiled. It was only a small, very quiet smile (mostly because Yanagi had never believed in unnecessarily gestures, and as such the freshmen on the other side of the fence were and would forever remain none the wiser), but it was a smile nonetheless. At this precise moment, his friends were like a pair of open books, complete with attention-grabbing titles and detailed summaries on the back, and it only went to prove that even they were not completely immune to the relentless powers of Data Tennis. Sometimes (and Yanagi was secretly grateful for those precious moments), things were just too easy.

He cleared his throat, already anticipating their reactions. "Kobayashi Daichi, also known among the schools as the 'Captain Slayer', age fiftee—"

"Captain _Slayer_, Renji?"

Hm. Yanagi supposed that coming from Yukimura, it was a remark that could almost pass for an exclamation of disbelief. The data specialist made a mental note to investigate this more thoroughly at another time.

"Renji," Sanada urged, unwittingly slipping into informal speech, now all but convinced that he would soon come into the unhappy possession of a new, snarky kouhai. "What _exactly_ do you mean by 'Captain Slayer'?"

"I'll get to that in a minute," replied the Master patiently, cool as a cucumber and not minding the added attention one bit. The almost desperate manner in which his normally aloof colleagues were hanging onto his every word was strangely gratifying. "As I was about to say, Kobayashi Daichi, age fifteen, blood type B, lefthander, received most of his schooling abroad and attended Rikkai Dai only in his third year of junior high, when we had already graduated. His reasons for suddenly relocating to Kanagawa-ken are known, but irrelevant to our purposes. What is interesting, however, is..."

Sanada sighed. Clearly, Yanagi was having a ball as storyteller (and good for him), but Sanada wished that he would just _get to the point already _and tell them about the boy's tennis.

The Emperor was made to immediately regret that thought, however, when he suddenly found himself staring straight into Yanagi Renji's wide open eyes. "Genichirou, please pay better attention and I assure you that the point won't pass you by," the latter chided, though not very sternly or seriously. "This is important."

Sanada deployed his sternest glare in response, but remained otherwise stationary, which could only mean one of two things. Yanagi cast a quick look in Yukimura's direction, duly deciding against pursuing this sidetrack any further. After all, one did not cross the Child of God if one could help it, and Seiichi made a valid point: there was always a later for teasing Sanada.

And so the Master smoothly picked up from where he had left off:

"Widely considered Rikkai's dark horse even well into the tournament season, Kobayashi was given vice-captain status shortly before the start of the Kantou Tournament where he defeated Hyoutei's buchou Hiyoshi Wakashi 6-4, 7-5 in the final."

"That explains the nickname," commented the vice-captain dryly, apparently letting bygones be bygones. "Still, earning that kind of reputation by defeating just one... That's tarundoru!"

Yanagi shook his head. "Genichirou, you're jumping to conclusions again. Kobayashi then overcame Tezuka's successor at Seigaku, Kaidou Kaoru, 7-5, 5-7, 7-6 (25-23), 7-6 (18-16) at the Nationals, in a battle of stamina that lasted nearly four hours. It's a new record on junior level, I believe." The data specialist paused before adding, "Of course, there _were_ other scalps as well: first was Hanomiya's captain at the District Preliminaries, followed by Ginka's, Aihara's, Okakura's, Kuroshio's and Shishigaku's as the season progressed."

That last part especially had been quite a mouthful. But as expected, Yukimura was the first to recover enough to speak.

"...did you hear that, Sanada?" smiled the Child of God, already halfway into envisioning unveiling an 'Akaya 2.0' at a suitable tournament, with a keen glint in his eyes. "You seem to know a lot about this boy, Renji."

"I possess a sufficient amount of personal data on him, if that is what you mean," replied the Master, wilting slightly under the intensity of Yukimura's razor-sharp gaze. Perhaps he ought to have held back a little in his evaluation considering, "...which is why by my calculations, Kobayashi is not yet ready to be a regular on this team. He will be, eventually. In fact, at any other school, there is a 73% chance that even his present level would guarantee him a place. But not here. Not yet. I recommend that we place him among the sub-regulars for now, on an advanced training schedule that allows us to track his improvements more closely." The data specialist turned to the Child of God apologetically. "And I'm afraid that it's still too early to consider putting together a personal training menu for him; later on in the season, perhaps, but not before."

"I see." Yukimura frowned. How very disappointing. But it couldn't be helped, and super talent was a rare thing after all. "What about the others? Renji, there really is nobody else?"

The Master thought for a moment. "I suppose that I could mention Yamada Hideki, Kimura Ren and Matsumoto Shouta," he said. "However, I don't think I need to go into details with those three. I expect that you still remember them, Seiichi. They've improved since we last saw them, even earning national recognition for last season, but... well."

Yanagi had tactfully refrained from finishing his sentence, though Sanada wondered why he had bothered with such a pointless nicety when the ensuing silence said it all (and more).

The captain, on his part, was pleased with the familiarity of those names. It had certainly been a while, but of course he remembered: they had been at the upper end of the sub-regular squad abilities-wise, and at a lesser school they might not have had to wait for as long as their third year of middle school to make the cut as team regulars. Rikkai Dai, however, was not some run of the mill, no-name school but home of the Rikkai Kings, the absolute tennis elite; and as such, the competition even between friends was so unforgiving that sometimes even talent and hard work were enough.

(Granted, of course, that these sub-regulars had been particularly unfortunate in being so completely overshadowed by their batchmate and his unprecedented capacity for the sport, which had taken the entire junior tennis circuit by storm.)

But hadn't they been _four_ back then? Yamada, Kimura and Matsumoto... There had been an Aiba-kun among them as well, Yukimura was sure of it, but he hadn't been mentioned along with the others. Well. Yanagi probably had his reasons. He always did.

"Competent doubles players, that Kimura-kun especially," Yukimura mused out loud. "He was still only a first-year when he nearly replaced Bunta in the official line-up. It was after those horrible ranking matches, I think. Do you remember that, Sanada?"

The vice-captain snorted. "How could I forget?"

...because how _anyone_ unlucky enough to have been caught up in the furious whirlwind that had been Marui Bunta ever could, was utterly beyond him: the volley specialist had taken Yukimura's sudden announcement of an autumn, pre-season ranking tournament as a personal insult (and he had probably been right, too, knowing Yukimura and the fact that Marui, with a recent loss to freshman Kimura to his name, was the most likely to lose his yet unofficial place on the regulars) and had taken it upon himself to wreak absolute havoc in the clubhouse in retaliation – before Sanada finally snapped and ordered the troublemaker on an unholy number of laps around the school in a vain attempt to limit the damage.

"What happened then was necessary."

The cold, dismissive tone, coupled with the hard look in his eyes, sent a small shudder down the Emperor's spine, as he was reminded yet again of the tremendous fighting spirit hidden away somewhere inside their delicate-looking friend. Sanada had once made the monumental mistake of underestimating that strength, which resulted in Yukimura pounding him into the ground and claiming a 6-1 victory after only fifteen insulting minutes of play, but he had learned from his mistake and never done it again.

"It forced Bunta to _adapt_," continued the Child of God, defiantly. "And he became a much stronger because of it."

"You would have dropped him from the team otherwise," Yanagi remarked. This was Rikkai Dai, so it wasn't a question that required confirmation (even though it very well could have been), but a simple observation.

"Yes." Yukimura's reply was immediate and without hesitation, though his lips had relaxed into a small smile when he added, "But I'm glad that I didn't have to. The team wouldn't have been the same without him."

Sanada nodded. Out of everyone's, Marui's rise to the tennis player he was today had to be the most tangible and noticeable by far. Initially one of the weaker individuals on the team, hampered not so much by the abilities of his rivals as by his own poor stamina, Marui had stepped up to the plate and proven his worth in doubles; to a point where a Jackal without a Marui (and vice versa) had become something unthinkable and foreign even to the Emperor. And as a second-year, Yukimura had already known, somehow, that there was more to the confident volley specialist than his penchant for sweets and flashy tennis moves, and he had pushed hard to draw that potential out in the open, in that pleasant but unforgiving, steel-sheathed-in-velvet way of his.

_Gentle but ruthless_ was Yukimura Seiichi through and through, though one would hardly know it from just looking at him.

When a young Sanada first laid eyes on the bright, bubbly boy with a headband, he had taken an instinctive dislike to what he saw, instantly discarding the stranger as just another soft, spoilt-rotten brat (and on a similar note, after seeing Seigaku's Fuji Syusuke in action for the first time, the Emperor could only imagine what might have been running through Tezuka's mind at their first meeting, and how _quickly_ he probably had been forced to change his mind). And while Sanada hadn't gone out of his way to avoid the other boy, he had refrained from initiating any first contact, or conversation (not that Sanada had ever been one for polite small-talk anyway, especially not with prospective opponents), and he hadn't been initiated into one either. In fact, he doubted that they even would have made each other's acquaintances under normal circumstances. But this had been at a junior tournament arranged by the tennis club they both happened to attend, and a prestigious competition at that.

Tennis indeed, but it hadn't always occupied such an obviously _central_ part of his life. It had been virtually unknown to him when growing up, and some sixteen years later, he was still the only person in his immediate family to play or even own a tennis racquet. But that was not to say that his childhood was deprived of the mental clarity and focus derived from regular exercise. As dictated by ancient family decree, Sanada Genichirou had been taught the principles of the katana from a very early age and had, as was expected of any son born to the Sanada name, excelled at kendo. But even though he had the potential to become quite skilled, he had realized with some regret – and considerable envy – that he was unlikely to ever measure up to (and defeat) his older brother, who would always claim some deciding advantage: be it height, strength or experience. And so, at the ripe age of seven years old, Sanada decided to take up a secondary sport and had somehow ended up with a tennis racquet in his hand. He wasn't entirely sure of how that had come about exactly, only vaguely remembering asking his parents' permission to join a neighbourhood youth football club (and obtaining it; Sanada had been a very obedient child), but getting slightly lost on the way there.

In any case, once he had tried it and decided that he liked it, he had approached tennis with the same dogged determination and unparalleled competitiveness as he did everything else; until, eventually, he surpassed even his privately acquired coach's high expectations by triumphing at every junior tournament he entered. But winning against anyone and everyone he came up against lulled him into a false sense of superiority, and so the fall had been so much greater when 'it' finally happened: when _Yukimura_ _Seiichi_ happened, appearing without as much as a word of warning and from absolutely nowhere, in a chance encounter that came to change everything. Suddenly, Sanada was no longer undefeated. He had met someone better than him, _stronger_ than him; someone so small and delicate – and _effeminate_, too, with all that deceiving softness and hair, which had been longish even then – had crushed him with such ridiculous ease that he had shed angry tears (when he thought nobody was looking) at the mere thought of it for _days_ after the match itself. Still, without a Yukimura to defeat and ultimately befriend, he would never have found the motivation to push himself even harder and further, and to overcome the initial limitations to his own abilities.

In hindsight, Sanada was convinced that no-one, not even Tezuka, who would appear out of the blue only much, much later, could have achieved what the nine-year-old Yukimura did; that first match unlocked something important, and for that Sanada Genichirou would be forever truly grateful.


	3. part 3

Unbeknownst to Sanada (as was often the case in these kinds of situations, Yanagi noted; where the person whom it directly concerned, usually and ironically was the last to know), his face had rearranged itself to assume a blank, vaguely faraway expression; and as such, Rikkai Dai's resident demonic majesty appeared uncharacteristically distant and rather detached to all forms of reality.

The Child of God and the Master exchanged a look full of understanding.

'_Seiichi_.' Yanagi's slightly opened eyes revealed curiosity and a hint of concern. '_This_ _is_ _good_ _data_, _but_ _shouldn't_ _we_ _do_ _something_? _If_ _I didn't_ _know_ _any_ _better_, _I'd think_ _Genichirou_ _was_ _daydreaming_.'

Yukimura shook his head, altogether unconcerned (because, _really_, Renji worried too much sometimes), but his smile was warm and affectionate. '_No_, _let's_ _leave_ _him_ _be_ _for_ _now_. _Sanada_ _is_ _just_ _having_ _a_ _moment_. _He'll_ _come_ _back_ _to_ _us_ _soon_ _enough_.'

'_If_ _you_ _say_ _so, Seiichi_.' But Yanagi was not as convinced and he gave a shallow nod towards the tennis courts, where the Emperor's sudden lack of focus was beginning to attract a lot of attention. '_But_ _they_ _are_ _going_ _to_ _wonder_ _why_ _he's_ _staring_ _into_ _space_ _like_ _that,_ _and_ _Genichirou_ _would_ _never_ _forgive_ _us_ – _or_ _them_ – _if_ _he_ _thought_ _they_ _were_ _laughing_ _at_ _him_.'

'_Ah. And we couldn't have that, could we_,' smiled Yukimura back mischievously, but out loud he inquired, "Let's have it, then. What are their chances, Renji?"

Yanagi made a small mental note of the barely noticeable jolt as Sanada snapped out of his reveries, whatever they may have been or involved, before obligingly reciting his findings. "With the exception of Kobayashi, and possibly Kimura, are their chances of replacing any of our current regulars essentially slim to none," he said. "To be exact: 0.4% for Yamada and Matsumoto respectively, 5.3% for Kimura and 19.7% for Kobayashi."

"I'm not questioning your results," remarked the Child of God after a moment. "But those are some unusually low figures."

The data specialist shrugged. "Perhaps, though 'low' is a relative term. But you seem to be forgetting something very simple, Seiichi: _status quo_. The probability of all current regulars outclassing their aspiring replacements this season is nearly 93% to allow for an extraordinary set of circumstances, and even then is a sudden influx of new blood over the next couple of days extremely unlikely."

"You make a valid point, Renji."

Yukimura twirled a few strands of blue hair between his fingers in a slow and seemingly absentminded manner. The Master, who doubted that Yukimura was very aware of this particularly habit of his, had discovered not long after graduating from 'Yanagi-kun' to plain 'Renji' that it was a routine reserved for whenever Seiichi was worried or in particularly deep thought about something. He had only ever observed it when the captain was among friends, however, though it was reasonable to assume that he wouldn't want to appear indecisive or vulnerable in front of people he didn't know or trust – and this made Yanagi feel both privileged and maybe a little bit special.

"It's interesting how the team has remained basically unchanged since junior high," continued Yukimura, looking mildly amused. "It was actually quite a feat that everyone managed to make regulars last year. I had hoped for as much eventually, this year at the latest, but I certainly never expected things to progress so quickly."

"As much as you know that I don't believe in such things," Yanagi felt obliged to point out, "we _were_ lucky to have inherited such a young-line up. Let's not forget that most of the regulars, as well as sub-regulars, graduated that spring and left us with an unusually high number of empty slots for the taking. We should probably count ourselves rather fortunate that the circumstances conspired in the way that they did."

Sanada raised an eyebrow. "_Really_, Yanagi—"

The Master quickly held up a hand to silence the vice-captain, who looked set on protesting indignantly. Genichirou was proud – prouder than most, in fact – and a convincing 89% in favour of some kind of volatile reaction from his part meant that it had been anticipated. "However, that is not to say that we didn't deserve it. We earned our places on the team by playing far better tennis." Yanagi paused before adding with a crooked smile, "But I suppose that it is fair to say that it helped that our reputations preceded us, especially in the case of your captaincy, Seiichi."

The Emperor's scowl intensified. Damn that Yanagi and his freakish ability to somehow worm himself into Sanada's mind and steal the words straight from the tip of his tongue! Of course, Sanada held his good friend and fellow Demon's remarkable grasp of Data Tennis in the highest possible regard. Over the years, he had had too many close calls and first-hand experiences of the frightening efficiency at which Rikkai's master strategist would completely _deconstruct_ every aspect of his opponent's game if he let his guard down even by a little, to doubt the hard work that went into properly utilizing Yanagi's rare genius. Still, Sanada couldn't help to find it just a teeny-weeny bit unfair. After all, Yanagi was free to make observations and collect his precious data at will, in no way limited to when he was playing any actual tennis, while neither he nor Yukimura could just 'whip out' their special techniques with quite such ease, or apply them to everyday life so readily (...well, Yukimura could if he wanted to, Sanada supposed, but for the Child of God to take advantage of his particular set of skills outside of tennis would without a doubt be completely unethical).

In any case, it was a rather unsettling thought – Yanagi improving his tennis against anyone, anywhere and at any time – and more than enough to make any sane, competitive person more than a little paranoid.

"So there's nothing much impressive about this year's batch, then," muttered Sanada sourly, unashamedly taking out his irritation on the unsuspecting group of hopefuls in front of him. "Just look at them, standing around like idiots. Tarundoru!"

"Genichirou," cautioned him the data specialist. His past experiences of dealing with Sanada ensured that Yanagi possessed enough data (and friendly insight into the Emperor's surprisingly simple inner workings) to conclude that although this sudden mood-swing originated from some kind of unresolved resentment, it was certainly completely unrelated to any of their potential new teammates. "You are talking about tennis players who won both the Kantou Regional Tournament _and_ the National Tournament."

The 'just like us' was left unspoken; it was unnecessary when its presence was sensed by all relevant parties anyway.

But the Emperor just shrugged and stated with an air of absolute finality, "This is Rikkai Dai."

Now, had this been a conversation with anyone else about any subject other than tennis then the Master would have been hard-pressed to accept Sanada's statement as a satisfactory explanation to anything. But this was a conversation all about tennis, and not just any tennis: it was a conversation concerning Rikkai Dai tennis. And so Yukimura quite simply nodded his approval, and even Yanagi had to admit that Sanada's logic was flawless; after all, they there Rikkai Dai, and if Rikkai Dai was not crowned the champion of at least one of the aforementioned competitions (which it had a whopping 93% at the time they were still attending Rikkai's middle school section), then there was something very, very wrong with the ways of the junior tennis world.

But then there was mathematical symmetry to consider, and Yanagi felt that he ought to account for the Big Three's own contribution to the 7% of apocalypse. He certainly didn't like it, but someone had to.

"And yet, that year, we achieved neither," he said, regretting each word even as he spoke them.

Sanada shot a sharp look at Yanagi, quietly chastising the data specialist for being so needlessly brutal (even for him) and bringing to the surface a time in their lives that Sanada would rather forget, before moving on to carefully gauge Yukimura's reaction.

It had been such a thoroughly horrible year for all of them. Not only had Yukimura, who had been at the very heart of every victory and every celebration until then, suddenly taken ill with a life-threatening disease before their last season as junior high school students, a season that should (_was supposed to_) have been _theirs_ from beginning to end, could even start. But Sanada (100% capable, 100% reliable, 100% loyal Sanada) had struggled like crazy to remain outwardly calm and to carry on with life as if everything was fine and normal, pretending that he wasn't frightened halfway out of his mind by the very real possibility that his best friend and teammate might not live to see his own fourteenth birthday. But even then had Sanada clung to the belief that Yukimura would somehow find a way to defy the odds stacked up so high against him and _come_ _back_ _to_ _them_, and had worried all the more about the state of their team for when the captain finally did return. The Emperor had never felt so useless and pathetic as back then, standing by helplessly while everything that Yukimura had worked for so tirelessly threatened to crumble around him; it had been almost physically painful to watch fine cracks appear in their once-invincible team, despite of his and Yanagi's combined efforts to keep things afloat.

Or so he had thought, anyway. It was only later, once a sufficient period of time had passed and his emotions weren't so troublesome and raw anymore, that Sanada realized that everyone had actually held it together extremely well considering – what, with Yukimura's freak disease and that Echizen boy's unexpected emergence at Seigaku to drag it out of its years-long slump, BOTH happening at the exact same time? Yanagi had at Sanada's unspoken request calculated the chances of two such impossibly related events overlapping to be a puny 0.08%, and yet the interscholastic ranking at the end of the Nationals had said otherwise – eventually even accepting that the team had grown closer and much stronger than it otherwise might have, had the circumstances been happier ones.

Though that didn't make the memories of those truly hellish seven-odd months, the darkest yet in Sanada's life, any less painful; and it was apparent that Yukimura felt the same way.

"That was a difficult time," the captain murmured. "For everyone, I think."

Sanada's glower intensified tenfold, to a point where the vice-captain would usually take action to do something about it. But to his credit, Yanagi looked every bit as remorseful as he felt. "My apologies, Seiichi," the data specialist said, slowly and with care. "It was both thoughtless and inconsiderate of me. I shouldn't have—"

"_No_."

Sanada very nearly flinched. Yukimura's voice had been sharp like an unsheathed katana and steady like the hand that yielded it.

"You have nothing to apologize for, Renji. Honestly, I don't mind."

'_Surely, it is this incredible strength_,' the Emperor caught himself thinking, and not for the first time, '_that makes Yukimura_ _Rikkai's_ _captain_.'

"It would be foolish to pretend that it never happened. Rikkai is not so careless. _We_ are not so careless, or ungrateful, that we deny ourselves the chance to grow as tennis players. Yes, it is true that we didn't win the Nationals that time. It is true that I would have given anything short of my life to retain our title as Champions, to leave our mark with three consecutive victories. And it is true that I was disappointed when Seigaku robbed us of that chance to make history. But there was something important to be learned by everyone from that defeat. It taught us all a valuable lesson, and as far as I'm concerned, this is all that matters in the end. Does this mean that I would willingly put myself through those long months of uncertainty and pain all over again? Not if I could help it, but at the same time I think that year was necessary somehow."

The Child of God gave his two-man audience a bright look full of defiance, pride and something more, gratitude.

"—and just look at us now! Almost two years on and we are better than ever. Rikkai is still the team beat, it is still the team that every other team aspires to be, and we are defending Champions of a different set of Nationals. So if everything we are and have achieved this far was made possible by that one year of sacrifice, then I'd say it was almost worth it: everyone's hard work, the disappointment, everything. It might have taken us a while to get to where we are today, but we made it, all of us, and we haven't lost anyone on the way."

Obviously, Sanada would rather die a slow and painful death (or babysit Akaya at the arcade for a whole afternoon, whichever was worse) than to ever admit it out loud, but at the end of Yukimura's spur-of-the-moment mini-speech, the Emperor couldn't help but to feel a tiny bit inspired; and also truly, thoroughly awed.

"Yukimura," he started, still a little dazed. "_That_—"

"Is all in the past and has nothing to do with why we're here," Yukimura finished for him before turning his complete attention back to the tennis courts and the task at hand. "The turnout is quite good this year, I suppose, but nothing out of the ordinary. Time then, Renji?"

The data specialist did as he was asked, but for once he had no helpful, intelligent and instantaneous response at the ready. The answer was on his tongue, and his lips were moving as they should, only the words refused to come out at all.

"Yanagi?" prompted Sanada impatiently, before consulting the sleek metallic device on his own wrist. "_Ah_."

Now, Sanada Genichirou and Yanagi Renji weren't exactly people from whom he would normally expect deceit and trickery, not when they had Niou for that sort of thing, but something strange and unusual was clearly up; and the Child of God was _not_ amused.

"What on earth is the matter with you two?" he demanded, eyeing his friends sternly. It was both regretful and irritating that he had to rely on them like this, but as it happened, he really had no other choice. The battery of Yukimura's own wristwatch had given out flat earlier in the day, just in time for morning practise to end, and he never brought out his mobile phone to the tennis courts as a general rule. So he was completely at their mercy for the afternoon, which wasn't an entirely comfortable feeling.

"Well?" the captain pressed on, a bit more sharply and with a lot more bite. "Someone say something already!"

To which the Master finally ground out with some difficulty, "Registration officially ended three minutes and not-quite thirty seconds ago."

Yukimura's eyes widened. "It's past four o'clock... _already_?"

"The grace period of almost over," confirmed Yanagi with forced calm. "If he doesn't turn up within the next ninety seconds, then we can't allow him to go through with the tryouts."

'Not with clear consciences, at least,' he was tempted to add before thinking better of it. There were, after all, those rare instances where even morality took a back seat to the Bigger Picture.

Sanada, on his part, was hit by a sudden, unwanted thought. "Does he even know?" he blurted out in spite of himself. "About the extension being only five minutes?"

The captain and vice-captain both turned to their resident strategist expectantly.

"Not necessarily," replied the Master grudgingly, mentally kicking himself for not having considered this possibility seriously enough. "There is a 29% chance that he is completely unaware."

"_Mattaku_, that boy is careless!" growled Sanada. "He—"

"It could be worse," interrupted him the captain quietly, though even the Child of God wasn't entirely sure of _how_ that would be exactly. "Still, the risk..."

And chances were that things would become even _more_ problematic from here on: the final countdown was approaching very quickly now, and even though Yukimura was personally more than ready to bend even a few founding club rules (primordial traditions and senpai's warnings be damned) for the sakes of the Greater Good and Future Greatness of Rikkai Dai tennis – as would Renji in the event of an emergency, Yukimura was sure of it – to suddenly extend the grace period by any_ x_ number of minutes, or temporarily suspending the time limit altogether, wasn't a decision he could take lightly. Or alone, even with the Master's support. As the tennis club's highest authorities (Takahashi-sensei's mostly administrative role was too passive to really count), all three of them needed to be onboard if anything were to happen; and of course fully committed to carrying out their decision despite of the heavy criticism they were sure to provoke from the school's other, significantly less successful and significantly more resentful, sports clubs. And that was not to mention the levels of quiet discord among their own members; the Three Demons would be hard-pressed to refute the inevitable accusations of 'preferential treatment', 'partiality' and 'favouritism', largely because any such claims would, in fact, be true.

It was certainly selfish of him, but Yukimura felt quite fortunate that, this time, his wouldn't be the last word on the matter.

"What do you think about all this then, Sanada?"

It was a deceptively simple question, and identical to the one pitched to him only the day before when they had debated the possible merits of introducing a new element consisting of a series of strange-looking vegetable juices to the sub-regulars' training menus. (Unsurprisingly, Yukimura and Yanagi had been all for it, but Sanada had used his veto-right on the grounds that the juices shifted in colour every three seconds and looked generally unfit for human consumption.) But the vice-captain had since long learnt to be weary of anything and everything that came across as particularly harmless or innocent; and he certainly wasn't so stupid or naive that he didn't understand what Yukimura was truly getting at. And 'that' was _not_ an option.

The Emperor met the Child of God's guarded, deliberately neutral gaze straight on. "Yukimura, breaking the rules or making exceptions is out of the question," he said, regarding the others sternly.

Of course, it _was_ Yukimura who suggested it (and the vice-captain would sooner believe in Santa Claus and eternal life than doubting the sincerity of his motives), but even so _nothing_ could justify violating the Code so severely. Besides, the boy was unbelievably prideful and unlikely to ever forgive them if they made him any undue favours.

"But more to the point," continued Sanada darkly. "The brat probably thinks he has it all planned out. I _told_ you that Niou was a bad influence of him!"

Equal parts relieved and apprehensive now that the matter was finally settled, Yukimura took a moment to briefly consider Sanada's remark before relenting, "Perhaps, but he's young and impressionable, and easily influenced."

Even Yanagi raised an eyebrow at that.

"But as for whether or not he's late on purpose...?" Yukimura trailed off. "Renji. Any thoughts?"

"There is a 97% chance that Genichirou is right to think that there is a certain degree of premeditation involved in all this." And Yanagi really did hope that Sanada's instincts – and he really had an admirable, if utterly illogical ability to almost immediately smell out mischief – indeed were correct and that his own outdated observations wouldn't fail him. "In fact, I myself am inclined to believe that such is the case, if only because of Akaya's consistently close association with Niou."

Yukimura nodded noncommittally. He understood that his friends were only trying to cheer him up and he was rather touched by their concerns, but time was running out. _Fast_.

"He should at the very least have the decency not to hold up the tryouts for everyone else," muttered the Emperor evilly. It was unacceptable how the brat was making both Yukimura and Yanagi worry like this, and Akaya would be doing laps around the school until he graduated. That Sanada himself felt slightly unsettled by the whole affair was so absolutely and utterly _beside_ _the_ _point_ that it was negligible.

"When he gets here," the Emperor snarled with renewed energy, "I'll make him run, so help me—"

"Now, Genichirou," cut him Yanagi short. "There's—"

"_Oiiiii_, _over_ _there!_"

A tall, lanky boy, whose face was partially hidden under a mop of messy brown hair, was pointing towards the far end of the tennis courts with his Babolat racquet. "Look!"

Immediately, as of one mind and connected to the same central nervous system, the sea of freshmen hopefuls turned in the direction of the boy's racquet, no doubt to see for themselves what could have caused him to call out so suddenly.

A smaller boy, shorter than the first by almost a head and dressed in traditional all-white, sighed loudly.

"Whaddya yelling for, Yamada?" grumbled the short boy to his friend. "You're being annoying."

But then he paused to add, "Heh. Isn't that Kirihara?"

The courts grew deadly silent when a lone figure emerged more fully from between the lush, purely ornamental bushes meant to separate the sport grounds from the southernmost wing of the main school building.

'_Black_ _hair_, _sufficiently_ _untidy_ _to_ _be_ _a_ _match_; _medium_ _built_ _and_ _around_ _Seiichi's_ _height_ _and_ _size_, _though_ _perhaps_ _somewhat_ _shorter_ _and_ _marginally_ _broader_ _over_ _the_ _shoulders. All which is_ _perfectly_ _within_ _his_ _predicted_ _growth_ _trajectory_ _for_ _the_ _past_ _year_,' noted Yanagi as a boy dressed in light grey swung open the far gate to the tennis courts and casually sauntered closer. It was still far from decided, but it was certainly a good start.

'_That_ _tennis_ _bag.._.' Sanada knew where he had seen it before. He had kept his own racquets in a black bag just like it – in an identical one, in fact – throughout his whole junior high tennis career. But he and the other team regulars who had gone before him had all given theirs back before they graduated. A muscle above Sanada's right eyebrow twitched as the vice-captain realized the obvious; the brat had stolen school property and thought he could get away with it.

'_Had_ _they_ _always_ _been_ _so_ _green?_' Yukimura mused as the strange boy ventured closer at his own, unhurried pace. He was still almost three courts away, but the captain's sharp eyes could have recognized that glint of smug defiance anywhere. This boy could only be their Akaya.

'_It_ _is_ _still_ _only_ _a_ _91%_ _physical_ _match_,' the data specialist thought hurriedly to himself, studying the new arrival critically. '_Not_ _perfect_, _but_ _we're_ _almost_ _out_ _of_ _time_. _It_ _will_ _have_ _to_ _do_.'

"It's him," concluded Yanagi out loud. "91% in favour of and increasing."

Sanada, too, had made up his mind. "Acceptable," he declared, arms crossed resolutely over his chest.

"He's here," murmured Yukimura in agreement. "Time, Renji?"

But Yanagi had beaten him to it and was busy scratching his signature on a white piece of paper. "Four minutes and fifty-seven seconds," replied the data specialist evenly, holding out the slip for the captain to take. "Three whole seconds to spare. Akaya arrived at the tryouts within the set time limit. Turning him away now would go against club regulations."

The Child of God took one look at the name on the paper in his hands before cocking a brow at the Master, clearly indicating that he was amused and would very much enjoy an abridged account of as to how Yanagi Renji came into possession of Kirihara Akaya's club registration form.

"There was an 87% chance that he would either forget to bring it or otherwise misplace it on the way," Yanagi duly summarized. "Of course, it would have been both unfair and irrational to act on pure speculation, but _eighty_-_seven_ percent, Seiichi."

Sanada snorted, but the data specialist paid him no heed.

"I was merely taking proper precautions and it would seem as if my efforts weren't in vain this time. I suggest that we talk to Akaya about it at first opportunity, however, because this sort of thing can't be allowed to happen again."

The Emperor huffed in agreement, muttering something under his breath that the Master thought held an uncanny resemblance to "tarundoru", "foolish brat" and "taking responsibility". He might have been mistaken, of course, but it was unlikely. Yanagi hardly ever was.

Yukimura, on his part, acknowledged Yanagi's wisdom with a bright smile before quickly pocketing the slip of paper, sending a quick thought to the identical – though only partially completed – application form in his other pocket. It was probably for the best if he kept the fact that he had anticipated a similar scenario to the Master's and deemed it prudent to take a few precautions himself, _to_ himself for now. It wouldn't do if word somehow got out that the captain of the tennis club was playing favourites, not when it was all but an open secret already. But in any case, and his personal thoughts on the matter aside, now that their little devil finally had made his long-awaited appearance, it was time to call in the rest of the boys. The grace period was over anyway, and Yukimura would need all available manpower transferred to the tennis courts for the qualifying matches.

"_Sanada_," ordered the Child of God in his special buchou-voice for the added snap. "Please call Jackal and tell him to close up shop. The registration area needs to be cleared. I don't care by whom as long as it gets done, but a few of the sub-regulars should be enough. Mori-senpai is still around and might lend a hand, too. Then I want him to join us at the tennis courts as quickly as he can. The same goes for Bunta and Niou, and those two have better finished their laps or they can expect twice the number you assigned for later. Is that clear?"

"Aa," replied the Emperor and immediately dug deep into his right trouser pocket.

Once he had assured himself that his vice-captain had successfully fished out his phone and flipped it open to dial Jackal's number, Yukimura turned his attention back to the area on the other side of the chain-linked fence, where the younger boys seemed to be discussing the recent developments among themselves in hushed voices. Mostly.

"...why does he _always_ have to wait until the absolute last moment?" complained the white-clad boy from earlier to his tall friend. "I swear, Yamada, he's _such_ a drama queen! I mean, would it kill him to be on time this once? For a moment there, I nearly thought he wouldn't make it!"

"Yeah?"

"God, Yamada! Are you even listening?"

Bizarrely enough, there was something distinct and familiar about the first boy's shrill whine and the slightly standoffish way the second boy seemed to just soak up the nagging; and at a closer inspection, the Child of God suddenly realized why. They were none other than Kimura Ren and Yamada Hideki, who had spent nearly two years of their middle school tennis careers playing under him. He might, however, be forgiven for not recognizing them straight away; Yamada-kun had evidently used much of the past twelve months growing for the two of them – a venture that quite clearly had included his hair as well, because it was significantly longer than before – and still had a touch of that awkward 'all-elbows-and-angles' phase about him (and even though Yukimura wasn't an overly sentimental person, it reminded him quite strongly of the period when Renji had suddenly shot up in height, almost overnight, and was forced to recalibrate every shot in his arsenal on a near-daily basis as a result), while Kimura-kun looked mostly the same: still on the small side and still immaculately dressed, though he seemed to have replaced his black bandana of yesteryear with a bright red cap that left a portion of his face in shadow. But short and lithe, Kimura-kun had developed a style of net play that put opponents twice his size and reach to shame, and which had almost booted Bunta off the regulars.

Maa, in any case, those two had resurfaced at the tryouts, much improved compared to their old selves (assuming that Yanagi's predictions were anything to go by and they usually were), and that alone was a good sign for the future of Rikkai tennis.

"It's only the first damn week of school, too!" insisted Kimura huffily. "Honestly, I wonder what happened this time."

The boy called Yamada sighed. "What are the odds that he did something juvenile to land himself in detention?"

At the word 'juvenile', Sanada very nearly dropped his phone on the ground, and Yukimura would later swear on the guts of his favourite racquet that Yanagi's ears had actually _perked_ _up_ for a moment. But the freshmen continued with their carefree chatter, blissfully unaware that the Big and all-powerful Three were shamelessly tuning in on their conversation.

"Pretty high if you ask me," said a stocky boy with conspicuously bleached hair and a toothy grin. "My money's on a fight."

"Don't think so," replied Yamada with a shrug. "He might act like he's all that, but Kirihara is mostly talk. Outside tennis anyway."

Sanada seemed to finally have gotten hold of Jackal, and Yukimura noted off-handily that the short conversation consisted of only a very few words—

"_Jackal_, _Sanada_. _He's_ _here_. _Yes_, _now_. _Leave_ _it_. _Good_. _We'll_ _be_ _expecting_ _you_."

—so the captain turned his attention to the Master instead. "A fight?" he questioned. "_Our_ Akaya?"

Yanagi looked a little troubled. "Factoring in his age, temperament and obvious disregard for authority, it isn't nearly as farfetched as you seem to think. But a fight is still _quite_ unlikely. I'd say 9.2%... no, 9.5% at the most. Akaya is—"

"Shut up, shut up, _shut_ _up_," Kimura suddenly hissed, rather loudly, upon noticing that their much-talked about batchmate was much closer than before and now comfortably within earshot. "Or he'll make us run until our legs fall off!"

The boy with the bleached hair snorted. "He can't do that!" he declared, rolling his eyes. "Kami, you're stupid, Kimura. This isn't even his team anymore! Trust me, Kirihara can't do nothing."

"Y'know, I'm not so sure." Yamada sounded thoughtful. "He'd find a way if he really wanted to, Matsumoto, and you know it."

Matsumoto, eh? Yukimura studied the boy with a critical eye. But it _was_ him, wasn't it, even though he certainly wouldn't have guessed it at a first look: Matsumoto Shouta was much better suited for his natural hair colour than as a dirty blonde. But before the Child of God could continue his musings about butchered paintjobs in general (because really now, that awful, _awful_ attempt at pointillism that had been left in the art room was so horrendous that it ought to be criminal), someone tapped him on his shoulder.

"Jackal has gone to look for Niou and Marui," reported Sanada. "They'll be here in a few minutes."

"Good, good." Yukimura smiled good-naturedly. "And Yagyuu's meeting with the Student Council should be over as well. Renji—"

The data specialist nodded, speedy fingers already dialling the Gentleman's private number. "I'm on it."

"_Kirihara_ _Akaya_," spat some no-name boy with enough venom to immediately attract the vice-captain's attention. "Fuck! I was hoping that guy wouldn't show! Now we'll never make it as regulars."

Sanada seethed – _mattaku_, his grandfather was right. Youth nowadays! – and he was about to single out the boy right there and then to instil some much-needed respect for manners and good language in his black and yellow Rikkai Dai heart, but he changed his mind then something else caught his attention.

(And it certainly wasn't Yanagi's conversation with Yagyuu, which seemed fairly normal by all accounts:

"_Yes, he's here, just as expected. Niou, you say? No, laps, apparently. Genichirou. Yes. No, I wouldn't be surprised either. 4%. Yes, immediately if you could. No, I'm sure that's fine. Ah, yes. Quite_.")

"Ano, sorry to bother you, but who is this 'Kirihara' everyone's talking about?" asked a fairly small and fragile-looking boy, who in all fairness _could_ be hiding Yukimura-like super powers somewhere inside his slight frame, (though Sanada rather doubted it, because what were the odds of two Yukimuras when one was logic-defying enough?), but seemed more likely to collapse with fatigue halfway through the warm-up laps. "I know I've heard that name someplace before, but I can't really say where."

"I take it that you're not from around here then," replied the boy next to him.

The boy shrugged embarrassedly. "I just moved from Kyoto less than a week ago."

"Eh? Well, welcome to Kanagawa-ken," said the other boy cheerfully before sobering up considerably. "Still, that's no excuse for not knowing. Look, Kirihara Akaya captained the team from Rikkai Dai that won the junior high National Tournament last year. That ring a bell? I mean, I know Kyoto is pretty far and all, but you're a tennis player, aren't ya? He's real famous, you know! Almost as famous as the Big Three and you _must_ have heard about them!"

"But I never said I didn't know..." protested the boy formerly from Kyoto, before the one yen coin finally dropped and his brown eyes grew to the size of saucers. "Wait! No shit! You mean THAT Kirihara Akaya?"

"Yep, you've got that right" His new friend nodded sagely. "Don't know if you heard, but he toyed with Hyoutei at the finals of the Kantou Regionals, placing himself in one of the _doubles_. Then he got back at Seigaku at the Nationals, winning his own match at record time before Kobayashi-kun wrapped things up in Singles 2... That guy over there is Kirihara Akaya alright, Rikkai Dai's Red Devil."

Rikkai Dai's Red Devil? Well there was something he hadn't heard before. But instead of feeling even remotely awed, the Emperor snorted at the foolishness. Sure, the brat had managed to secure the Double, but that much had been expected of him and it was no reason to worship him like some kind of higher being. Kami-sama only knew that the tennis club at Rikkai Dai had enough of _those_ running loose already!

"Sanada?"

Yukimura's voice contained one part disapproval and three parts amusement, and Sanada couldn't shake the distinct feeling that he had a very long season ahead of him.

"Sanada," the Child of God repeated, "Akaya's team did well against Hyoutei. Renji and I both watched the tapes. There were things that should have been done better, but on a whole it was a well-planned effort."

But before the vice-captain had a chance to defend himself, Yanagi entered the conversation. "Yagyuu still has a few things to settle," reported the data specialist. "But he'll come straight to the courts afterwards."

Not ideal but acceptable. Yukimura nodded. "Goo—"

"Kirihara Akaya, and oh what a _scary_ guy he is!" a slim, tanned boy with a pair of sunglasses perched on top of his head gushed loudly in a voice dripping with sarcasm; instantly attracting the Three Demons' unwavering attention, as well as everyone else's.

"_Che_," huffed the boy, clearly unimpressed. "Dude is _totally_ overrated if you ask me. Still, I can't say that Seigaku didn't have it coming, and Hyoutei was making far too much noise about nothing... _ne_?"

"Damn right," agreed someone in the peripheries of the crowd. "But lay off the hate, will ya? It's not _my_ fault that everyone can't be as talented as me."


	4. part 4

Hushed but excited whispers filled the air as the crowd quickly drew back to reveal none other than Kirihara Akaya himself.

The former tennis captain and Junior Ace – 'Freshman' Ace now, Akaya supposed, though that didn't sound even half as cool – immediately steered for his small group of close friends and teammates and reached them quickly and without much trouble, despite of the large number of people to obstruct his path.

Yanagi noted with considerable amusement how the assembled tennis team hopefuls parted to let him through, but whether that should be attributed to fear or respect—? Well, all things and reputations considered, the data specialist strongly suspected the former.

Sanada, on the other hand, was watching the newcomer like a hawk, eyes narrowed into two slits, and disapproving of just about everything about the boy – from his dramatic entrance and foul mouth to his messy hair and clearly mismatched socks. _Mattaku_, it had only been a few minutes at most, but he could already feel a headache coming on.

"Yo, Kobayashi!" Akaya flashed the boy with the sunglasses his special, patented smirk. "Guys," he added, almost as an afterthought, before taking a good look around. "So what's going on? Are there any matches happening or what?"

"Not yet, there's not," snapped the boy who was Kobayashi Daichi, sourly, looking annoyed. "But you sure took your sweet time getting here. We were almost going to send out a search party for you, _buchou_, just in case you'd gotten lost on the way. Or, you know, fallen asleep somewhere."

Eh. What?

Sanada could only watch with growing bewilderment the way that Akaya was just standing there and allowing that sarcastic – if supposedly very talented – brat talk back to him like it was nothing. Akaya and Kobayashi's possible bond as captain and vice-captain notwithstanding, Sanada would have expected their (his, _whatever_) kouhai to have howled with rage, and possibly even knocked his former second-in-command unconscious by now. But for some, for the Emperor, utterly _unfathomable_ reason, Akaya hadn't. Something that seriously called into question just what (the hell!) had happened to Akaya during his short bout as buchou? The severe lack of quintessential, Akaya-like behaviour was suspicious and highly disturbing insofar that it didn't make any sense for the brat to suddenly act so _sensibly_. To borrow one of Yanagi's favourite expressions, albeit adapting it to better suit the situation at hand, the whole affair practically screamed of illogical. And speaking of Yanagi, their data specialist looked – just as Sanada had expected even before he cast an inquiring glance in his general direction – thoroughly perplexed. Yukimura, however, seemed completely unfazed with his feathers perfectly unruffled by the strange events, relaxed and smiling as usual. That too was illogical to a certain degree, but at least it was Yukimura's special brand of illogical that Sanada had grown used to. Besides, if the Child of God was fine with whatever was going on and accepted it for what it was, there was no reason why Sanada shouldn't follow suit and do the same. This was a me-too survival strategy that had worked fairly well in the past, even though there had been times when Yukimura's definition of what was acceptable differed ever so slightly from Sanada's...

The Emperor could only hope that this wouldn't turn out to be one of them.

"I'm touched by your concern, guys, I really am. I never knew how much you cared." Akaya's smirk grew wider, and Sanada was suddenly hit across the face with the realization that the insufferable brat in fact was _enjoying_ himself. "But a no-show? _Me_? Nah, you shouldn't have worried. It would've looked bad if I got here too early, and then there was that thing with Nagayama-sensei that kept me after class." Akaya paused then added, "But what's with the formalities, Kobayashi? I don't think you called me 'buchou' even once during the actual season. It's too late for scoring brownie points now, you know."

"Don't flatter yourself," Kobayashi huffed indignantly before breaking out in a self-satisfied grin of his own. "As if you actually deserved it, _Akaya_-_buchou_."

"Whatever," grunted the green-eyed boy, in lack of a snappier reply. "But you never beat _me_ once. And you were supposed to be our fukubuchou, _Dai_-_chan_."

Admittedly, Akaya felt a little annoyed at having been forced into using his ultimate trump card (his superior tennis) so early on, even after carefully weighing all of his other options against each other in his head. But what was he supposed to have done, just let it slide? Kobayashi had _really_ been asking for it this time.

The Master exhaled what could have been mistaken as a sigh of relief. (It was not. He was just dispelling carbon dioxide from his body at a slower rate than usual.) Still, it was reassuring to see that although the raging wildfire also known as Kirihara Akaya had somehow managed to mature – or at least _mellow_ – to a point where he no longer beat down on anyone and everyone who happened to look at him sideways, he was still very much in possession of his former brattiness. Yanagi did, however, make a mental note to talk to Niou. It would seem necessary to further Akaya's education in all things comebacks, and that as soon as possible; it was unacceptable how their kouhai had been baited into playing his trump card so quickly.

In any case, it had obviously hit home as Kobayashi was positively seething. "I... I just haven't gotten around to that yet," he ground out through gritted teeth. "So stop bringing it up all the time! And don't call me that!"

Akaya just sniggered condescendingly – albeit not in an entirely unfriendly way – and made full use of his recent growth spurt to look down on the only slightly shorter Kobayashi. Over the past season, the former captain had discovered that spending so much time with Niou-senpai hadn't been completely useless after all, since it had taught him a wide range of intimidation techniques. And naturally, his being Niou-senpai's loyal kouhai and all, Akaya had dutifully practised on his new teammates at every opportunity. Although, perhaps he had overdone it a little, because Kobayashi, Yamada, Matsumoto and Kimura had eventually developed a strange immunity to even his most fearsome glares... Well, at least they had enough sense to know when he was _really_ angry. Then even Kobayashi had enough smarts to shut up and cower like everyone else.

Sanada, for his part, was still undecided on _what_ to think, other than that he was tempted to have them all removed from the courts for being disrespectful and disruptive: the five loudmouths were hardly poster-boy material for the Demon-endorsed ethos of 'poise and dignity'. Still, there was no denying that Akaya's little band had done well throughout the past season (undefeated, apparently, right up to the closing ceremony at the National Tournament), and the Emperor recognized camaraderie when he saw it. But even that didn't change the fact that the green-eyed mess of a boy had been allowed to run wild for _far_ too long and was in dire need of being taken down a peg or two, and that as soon as possible.

"..._che_, so you really think you're hot stuff, Kirihara?"

"Your words, Kobayashi, not mine."

"You better watch out. My Twist's better than ever _and_ I've been working on this new technique lately."

"So? You're a hundred years too early if you think some flashy special move makes any difference. Besides, I bet I could still break your Twist in my sleep."

"Why you smug bas—"

"Oi, mind your manners, Kobayashi."

"Hah! Like the Red Devil's one to lecture me about manners! I'll show you, though. Saturday at ten, the usual place."

"Don't you ever get tired of getting beaten by me all the time?"

"If you're too chicken, then I guess–"

"Who's chicken? You're on!"

_Saa_, despite the noise, this was rather interesting.

Yukimura had always wondered what kind of captain Akaya would grow up to be. After all, it was a well-known fact that the ability to herd a flock of high-spirited, headstrong teenage boys (often with their own, sometimes conflicting, personal agendas, and that was _before_ adrenaline had a chance to kick in and amplify any differences a thousand-fold) towards a common goal was something entirely separate from excelling at the sport itself. Still, in Akaya's case the path to succession, and an eventual coronation as Rikkai Dai Fuzokuchuu's next tennis captain, had been clear from the very start. When the third-years graduated from the tennis club and junior high, Akaya would be the only one left to ever have played directly under the famous Three Demons. But even so, choosing such a notoriously _volatile_ successor had been a gamble on Yukimura's part; but when it came down to a decision, there had been no-one else among the second-years with Akaya's credentials as a tennis player, or with his never-say-die attitude that would be crucial in inspiring new generations of Rikkai Dai pride. And there was no-one else that the Child of God had trusted more to take seriously the legacy that was entrusted to him.

So it had only been natural when he – a senpai of the club, an Old Boy, and its former captain to boot – had let his thoughts wander to the junior high section once or twice over the past season. His commitments to his own team and new school ensured that he never had the time to visit and see for himself (besides, even though Akaya was likely to have taken any of his suggestions to heart, Yukimura knew that meddling in his kouhai's business would be to undermine his leadership), but he had been curious as to how the new captain managed. The success during his brief captaincy made it clear that Akaya had kept his team in line, but from what Yukimura was seeing from the good-natured banter in front of him, it would seem that he hadn't done so through fear. And this was an idea that, admittedly, felt somewhat foreign to him. The Child of God wasn't naive enough to think that even now, after all their years together as a _team_, his own comrades weren't afraid of him; he saw it quite clearly in their eyes and read it in their stances when he occasionally picked up his tennis racquet and stepped on one of the tennis courts to play. Sanada and Yanagi were different, of course, in that they possessed extraordinary abilities themselves, but while they came close, even they didn't come close enough. Echizen Ryoma-kun, however, had been spot on, and Yukimura still thought back on the younger boy's refreshing lack of fearful respect with genuine fondness. It was such a shame, really, that the super rookie had to spend more time in America than he did in Japan. Yukimura was certain that many of Samurai Junior's former opponents felt the same way.

"...and I wonder how Marui-san is doing. I haven't seen his new move yet, but I hear that he really tore it up last season and figure that it has to be pretty good."

"Well, what do you expect? He's a tensai, so stuff like coming up with new cool techniques is probably a piece of cake for him."

"Tell me about it! You know, I've been working on that tightrope thing that he does, but... Marui-san makes it look so _easy_, but I guess you really have to be a genius to pull it off, huh."

"Saa, I bet he still hates your guts, though. I mean, that second match was _vicious_! I've never seen anything like it; he went all out from the start and just _slaughtered_ you, man, and you weren't even playing all that badly. I really thought you would die right there and then, Kimura. Even Jackal-senpai looked kinda worried."

"Don't remind me, Yamada. And getting completely whitewashed wasn't the really bad part either. I seriously thought that he was going to glare a hole through my forehead. But, uh, Kirihara, you were a regular with Marui-san before, so you probably know him a lot better than I do."

"Marui-senpai? Yeah, I guess. What about it?"

"You don't think that he's actually, you know, still hung up on that, right? It's not like it was _my_ fault that he hadn't been playing his best for a while or that those extra ranking matches came up like that. Besides, how was _I _supposed to know that—"

"Kimura. You almost cost the guy his spot on the regulars. How would he _not_ still be mad about it? I mean, I'd be pretty pissed, too, if some scrawny freshman came out of nowhere and almost took _my_ place. I would definitely remember it."

"Shut up, Matsumoto! I wasn't even talking to you, fool. And it's not like I just challenged him all randomly: senpai _asked_ me to play that match against Marui-san and when I won, he told me to come back for the ranking matches. Besides, we were all scrawny freshmen back then, which was _ages_ ago, anyway, so Marui-san probably doesn't even wanna murder me anymore... right, Kirihara?"

"Yeah sure, don't worry about it. Marui-senpai's probably forgotten all about it already. In fact, I doubt he even remembers who you are. Isn't that good news, Kimura?"

"Yeah, that's—Hey! Whaddya mean he doesn't remember, huh? I beat him fair and squa—"

"Pipe down, Kimura. You're giving me a headache. But about that, uh... that..."

"Don't strain your brain from thinking too hard, Kobayashi."

"Whatever, Kirihara. But, uh, Kimura, that Marui-san person you're talking about, is that 'Marui' as in Marui Bunta the volley specialist with a _freaky_ net play? Red hair and bubblegum?"

"Marui-san's volleys aren't freaky! They're _amazing_! And his gum–"

"There you go fanboying again, Kimura. Sheesh, get a grip, will ya? I suppose that it's only natural that you wouldn't know any of this, Kobayashi. You weren't here yet, so I'll fill you in on the full story about tensai Marui Bunta and our own Kimura's _history_ together. It was during our first year with the tennis club when... oh, I don't even know if I should tell you. It's pretty _scandalous_."

"What the hell are you talking about, Matsumoto, you stupid perv! Why are you making it sound so dirty? Kobayashi, we played each other twice: first time, I barely beat him. The second time, he killed me: 6-0, 6-0, 6-0. And that's _it_! There's no 'history', no 'scandal', no _nothing_, alright! Got it?"

"Saa, I don't know about you, but the lady doth protest too much, methinks. It's suspicious. _Ne_, Kobayashi?"

"I... I really don't care."

"Sh-Shut up! And I'm _not_ a girl!"

"Really, you're not? You sure? Because you're short like one."

"I'm gonna _kill_ you, Matsumoto! How's that for a girl? Huh?!"

Yukimura bit back the sudden urge to laugh. Echizen-kun or not, he had a distinct feeling that tennis was about to become more interesting, at least as far as the Rikkai Dai home front was concerned. Even if Akaya's new teammates wouldn't make the cut as regulars this time around, a lot could happen over the next few years, and it would probably pay off to keep an eye on them. If for no other reason, they seemed to get along very well with Akaya and he wasn't known to tolerate people with much lesser skills than his own, much less befriend them. So who knew, things might get interesting indeed.

"Kimura, whoa, calm down! I bet he's just bugging you because he feels all abandoned and lonely now that Aiba isn't here anymore. _Ne_, Matsumoto?"

"Leave Aiba out of it, Yamada."

"Why? Because he was your doubles partner and you miss him? Matsu—man, I'm telling ya, you're taking this way too hard! I mean, you were a team for as long as Kimura and me, but even if Kimura transferred, like, tomorrow, you wouldn't catch _me_ crying abou–"

"Yamada, that's enough. Lay off."

"Hai, hai, buchou. But I was just trying to make Matsumoto lighten up a little so he'll stop attacking _my_ doubles partner."

"I don't care who attacked who," informed them the former captain dismissively. "Besides, who are you calling 'buchou', fool? He's over _there_."

Akaya nodded towards were the Big Three were standing. He had intentionally put off greeting his demonic senpai-taichi until the Golden Opportune Moment presented itself. Now seemed like a cool enough time to do it.

"—ne, _Yukimura_-_buchou_?" the freshman called out, his green eyes alight with challenge, admiration, mockery and respect. Damn, he had missed all this.

"Akaya." Something suspiciously _soft_ had crept into Yukimura's eyes and the Master thought that at this precise moment, accusations of partiality and favouritism were the last things on the Child of God's mind. "You've grown taller."

In spite of himself (because, really, this was just the same old buchou telling him something he already knew), Akaya was beaming and found that he couldn't care less if the whole world saw.

"Yeah, thanks, buch—" Akaya stopped midsentence to point a shaking finger towards the captain's left before exclaiming in a (over)dramatically shrill voice, "Who the hell are _you_? And what have you done with Sanada-fukubuchou?"

And that was how Sanada Genichirou suddenly found himself the focal point of the excessive amount of staring going on at the tennis courts, because what Akaya had so rudely referred to was, of course, Sanada's hatless existence.

Upon their first season as regulars with the high school tennis club – as captain and vice-captain respectively, which was how things should be – Yukimura had suddenly insisted that Sanada immediately stopped wearing his black baseball cap. The issue had been raised as they were locking up the clubhouse after a particularly gruelling afternoon practise; still, it was a good thing that Yukimura had been considerate enough to choose such a private setting for the confrontation, because at the end of it, Sanada had looked at him rather stupidly and apparently doing very well in "impersonating a starved goldfish". But the request had been so entirely unexpected that Sanada initially had been at a complete loss for words. What the hell did Yukimura have against his cap all of a sudden? It had never posed a problem before, so why on earth _now_? Naturally, once he regained the ability to form coherent sentences, Sanada had politely explained that he'd be damned if he were to get rid of anything. His hat was perfectly suited for all kinds of outdoor activities and did in no way imaginable pose a threat to neither his own tennis nor anyone else's. And not to speak of the fact that its trusty brim provided his poor eyes with invaluable defence against whatever stupidity, or sheer out-of-control _chaos_, was going on nearby; and if it wasn't already, it was guaranteed to be breaking loose eventually. Sanada was a firm believer in preparedness.

He had tried his best to explain as much to Yukimura in an attempt to make him see _reason_, but that had backfired magnificently when the Child of God sweetly and patiently informed him that this was _his_ point exactly, and the main reason why Sanada shouldn't be allowed to keep his headwear any longer. Apparently (and this was according to Yukimura who normally exhibited sound judgement), the problem lay in Sanada's supposed use of his cap as a shield to "alienate himself from his peers and making them fear and loathe him". '_Mattaku_, _Yukimura was really taking this seriously_,' thought Sanada, who had only been interested in the part of Yukimura's rather impressive speech that mentioned "fear". And as blunt as he was, Sanada had naturally said as much once it was over and Yukimura had asked him what he thought about it; something he could tell instantly disappointed Yukimura. But as much as Sanada resented disappointing Yukimura, he was unwilling (very much in an over-my-dead-_dead_-body sort of way) to give up whatever it was about his person that inspired this supposed fear; an old baseball cap, almost identical to the one given to him by his grandfather so long ago? _So be it_. After all, being feared usually meant being left alone, which suited Sanada just fine, since that probably spared him a lot of headache. But he should have known that arguing that his hat in its marvellous capacity of spreading fear was _exactly_ why it was so useful in the first place (and why he liked it so much), and that it played a crucial part in his continued involvement in club matters as a _fully_-functioning member of the team, wouldn't go down very well with Yukimura. And the captain had lost no time to promptly issuing an ultimatum: Sanada would either get rid of his hat right there and then, or get kicked out of the tennis club with immediate effect. The Child of God had then added in a dangerously velvety tone (which had been accompanied by a rather steely smile and an indeterminable yet _clearly_ foreboding glint in his eyes) that he had talked things over with Takahashi-sensei, who would be onboard with a replacement vice-captain of Yukimura's choice.

One, who could quite possibly end up being Niou.

Needless to say, Sanada had cowered, caved and handed Yukimura his deeply beloved baseball cap without further protests. The other boy had sombrely thanked him for his great sacrifice, before unceremoniously chucking it in the bin right before his very eyes.

Almost a year had passed since that fateful day, and even though Yukimura had been almost instantly forgiven (if only because he was _Yukimura_), Sanada was still feeling sore about it. And when Akaya pointed at him, openly mocking his lack of becapment in front of everyone and _swore_ all in a few frail sentences, Sanada was less than pleased. Then adding to that the fact that he had worried himself sick (fine, _there_, he admitted it, but that didn't make him feel any damn better) about the prospect of the brat missing out on the tryouts, and Sanada was _ripe_ to explode with pent-up frustration.

Yukimura, who sensed the sudden, drastic change in his friend, knew that it was _much_ too late to do anything about it. But since he harboured a peculiar feeling that he was somehow partly responsible for the terrible fate sure to befall their kouhai in the next five seconds or so, he made a half-hearted attempt anyway. "Sana—"

"**TARUNDORU!"** roared Sanada with finality; as if everything else wasn't enough to bring him much unwanted stress and misery, Yukimura siding with the brat... That was just _unforgivable_. "AKAYA! ONE HUNDRED laps around the school for being late, disrupting tryouts and disrespecting an upperclassman! GO! Run! NOW!"

"Come on, fukubuchou. Cut me some slack, will ya?" Akaya whined, letting his racquet bag slide off his shoulder and onto the ground, where it landed with a soft thud. "I was only joking! 'Sides..." His face split into a triumphant grin. "Technically, you can't order me to do anything. I haven't even made the team yet, remember?"

"YOU...!" Sanada no longer cared about the strange looks he was receiving from the other side of the fence. "WHY YOU LITTLE—"

"Akaya," interjected Yanagi, acting on the decision to intervene before Sanada managed to scare off all of their prospective new members. "You better start running, or there's a 94% chance that Genichirou doubles the number of laps within the next thirty-two seconds."

"But a hundred laps?" Akaya pouted, letting caution, pride and his hard-earned reputation as Rikkai Dai's Red Devil fly to wherever in a last-ditch effort to make Yanagi-senpai and/or Yukimura-buchou take pity on him and save him from Sanada-fukubuchou, who clearly (was just plain crazy) still hadn't grown a sense of humour. "It's my first day and everything!"

The high school freshman looked up at his senpai-taichi (Yanagi-senpai had always been _outrageously_ tall and even buchou had grown a bit over the last year) with hopeful eyes, only to confirm the hopelessness of his cause in Yukimura Seiichi's gentle but blindingly _neutral_ smile.

'_I know what you're trying to pull but I'm not interfering_,' it seemed to say. '_This time, be a man and take responsibility for your actions. Now do what he says before it gets any worse._'

Akaya sighed in defeat as he unzipped his jersey and stuffed it into one of the side pockets of his tennis bag. "What are my chances, Yanagi-senpai?"

The Master regarded the younger boy, whose noisy and _vibrant_ personality had been sorely missed by everyone (though none of them were likely to ever admit that out loud), with genuine fondness. "100% against," he said. "So don't even think about it."

"100%?" Akaya's eyes were wide. This was the first time that he had heard his overly-cautious data-senpai admit to a certainty, like, _ever_. "Seriously?"

"Data doesn't lie, Akaya," Yanagi stated for the _n_th time of the day before letting his occasional doubles partner catch a glimpse of iris just to stress that he indeed was serious. "Now go, unless you want your laps to double."

"Hai, hai, Yanagi-senpai," Akaya muttered under his breath as he obediently set off at a comfortable jog. It was a pretty long way to fall from assigning punishment laps to being the one to actually run them.

Still, despite of his demotion from king to pup (again), the smile on Kirihara Akaya's face was 100% genuine. It had been a good day so far: the sun was out, it wasn't too hot or too cold outside and perfect for tennis, and his bento from home had been full of his favourite foods (probably because his mother knew what important day it was. After all, the tennis tryout was the only subject that Akaya had volunteered with for _weeks_). He didn't even mind Nagayama-sensei's insistence that Akaya stayed after class to explain how a pet goldfish possibly could have gobbled down his English assignment, not when Yamada, Kimura, Matsumoto and Kobayashi (who was a good guy when it came down to it, and a half-decent vice-captain. Akaya supposed that Kobayashi wasn't all that terrible at tennis either; though he'd be damned if the cocky brat ever managed to beat him, even at one of their weekly, unofficial showdowns) had all showed up for the tennis tryouts like he had hoped, being their same, obnoxious selves _as_ _usual_; or when Yanagi-senpai had lectured him about some random numbers and percentages _as_ _usual_; or when Sanada-fukubuchou had yelled at him and dished out an unholy number of laps _as_ _usual_; or when Yukimura-buchou had looked every inch the captain Akaya remembered, welcoming him back if he had only been gone for a week and not an entire year.

So far, everything had a nice, familiar feel to it, something that he should probably savour for as long as he could. He stood on the brink of a new school year, a new tennis season with new rivals ready to spring at him at first chance – and who knew what could happen once everyone got into the swing of things for real?

Now, Akaya wasn't so stupid or arrogant, contrary to popular belief, that he didn't know that his first few times on the high school tennis circuit would be rough, and that he might even end up getting his racquet handed to him by someone who _wasn't_ buchou (or Sanada-fukubuchou, or Yanagi-senpai, or...) at some point; not if he could help it, of course, but sometimes the gods were just cruel. Still, even the thought of an occasional defeat wasn't all that bad. Not when it meant that they were all back together again, because this time around they really _would_ be invincible.

That was, if he made the team as a regular first.

Akaya had researched the matter thoroughly (Yanagi-senpai would be proud, though Akaya sure as heck wasn't about to tell him about it) just to be sure, and concluded that there was no way that _anyone_, even Kobayashi, would be nearly strong enough to beat him for a place among his senpai-taichi. Unless, of course, someone like, say, _Echizen_ suddenly decided to move back to Japan and forego both Tokyo and Seigaku in favour of permanently settling in Kanagawa-ken. But such a troublesome scenario was highly unlikely. 99% against, in fact, even when factoring in Echizen's long and annoying history with exactly the kind of weird and unstable unpredictability that was just _beyond_ random. Even so, he wouldn't _quite_ put it past the former Seigaku star to barge in and ruin everything. After all, Echizen had a long and annoying history of that, too.

Kirihara Akaya increased his speed. Thinking about Echizen for too long always made him angry for some reason, but the brat had fled the country before they had a chance to settle any scores (for Akaya to crush him and get even), so he supposed that it was only natural.

Anyway, cocky, half-American tennis prodigies were welcome to do whatever the heck they pleased, as far as he was concerned, as long as they stayed the hell out of Japan (or at least out of Rikkai Dai Fuzokukou) for the next day and a half of tennis tryouts.

_His_ tennis tryouts.

It was strange that he cared so damn much about a few stupid qualifying matches he was sure to win anyway. But even though Akaya's last year of tennis at junior high school level certainly had been both fun (being an all-powerful and much fawned-over buchou had some _seriously_ cool advantages) and successful (going out with a Big-fucking-Bang by claiming both Kantou _and_ the Nationals. _Hah! Take that, Seigaku!_ Akaya wasn't bitter), seeing his mentors/arch nemeses/teammates/important people/whatever again made him realize that despite the horrors (Niou-senpai) and hardships (Sanada-fukubuchou) that were guaranteed to haunt him over the next few years of his tender life, there was no other place on Earth that he would rather be tormented at. And even though Akaya's last year of tennis at junior high school level certainly had been good (_great_ even, not least in terms of the new silverware in the school's trophy case), stepping out on Yukimura-buchou's high school tennis courts felt a bit like coming home after a long journey.

The past season hadn't been _lonely_ or anything, but it hadn't been the same (okay, _fine_, so maybe he had missed them sometimes) and he was looking forward to the season to come. And that was despite knowing that in only a few days time, he was likely to have grown sick and tired of his seven, self-appointed (because _Akaya_ sure hadn't asked for it) brothers' totally selfish 'We-Do-It-Under-The-Flimsy-Pretext-That-We-Care-But-Really-We-Just-Want-To-Watch-The-Cute-Kouhai-Squirm' meddling into his private affairs; and more specifically: Yanagi-senpai's 'It's-95%-For-Your-Own-Good' bossiness, Sanada-fukubuchou's lectures/rants of the 'Improve-The-Fatally-Flawed-Akaya' variety, Niou-senpai's endless arsenal of tricks, Marui-senpai's condescending smirks and his senpai-taichi's _other_ dubious displays of affection, whatever they were. (Actually, Akaya preferred to just leave it at that. He suspected very strongly that he was much better off not knowing anyway.)

But being the kind, patient and all-round benevolent character that he was, Akaya supposed that he would endure it with only small, occasional outbursts of righteous indignation (while secretly basking in all the fuss and attention. Not that they ever needed to know that, of course).

So all in all, Kirihara Akaya concluded with a smirk of satisfaction, things were looking pretty sweet.

Even with ninety-nine-and-a-quarter laps of punishment left to go, he couldn't have planned a better first day back (even if he had accepted Niou-senpai's help).


End file.
